Transformation

It seems like a lifetime ago-someone else's lifetime. The memories are not of me, but of someone else that I hovered over, observing, knowing the wrongness of it all. Even way back, before the blowout, I do not know that person. The memories are there, they're my memories, but I was a different being. Fractions of myself presented themselves, but the personage was irrational, with a fight-or-flight nature.

And Randy, who was Randy? He was my protector. He infantilized me, sheltered me from the trappings of adulthood. A mother-but not an adult, that's what I was. I didn't have to fill the car with gas, or pay bills, or do taxes. He enjoyed taking care of me, that's what he always said, and I, in my cynisim saw it as his way of controlling me. As long as I was dependent on Randy, I could never abandon him, the way his mother had so many times. And he-he let me mold him and control him in little ways, as he knew was my need.

As time grew on, my life became entangled in a relentless barrage of adversity. Motivation was not the problem, not at first anyway. No, it was the lack of inate ability to figure out what was the right thing to do in each drastic situation, and then do it. Of course, I think most people would lack those abilites traveling down my thorny path. That is when Randy slipped away, or was maybe pushed away. He could not relieve the pain I was going through, and could not quell his own demons.

That person, that incompetent, disjointed, hurt soul in me imploded. She died; she died of pain. Randy, shell-shocked, rose valiantly, taking charge for both of us. Led like a little child, by the hand, he resurrected that good part of me. We both were reborn. Then the toil began to become not what we were before the hurting time, but the mature loving couple we'd imagined we'd be way back in our genesis. And too, we fashioned new minds, hearts, and lips. Our minds were the minds of wisdom. Our hearts beacons to each other and our brood. Our lips became the passageway to freedom, whether they expressed passion or pain.

What do I do with the ashes of my doppelganger, whose memories I must contain? Can I wish them away into the wind? Or rather, should I keep them close as a reminder? I intern them to the deepest recesses of my being, for they can not be discarded.