"I was sick of letting the world run me so I decided to run the world."
~~~
Isabelle Cane was taken from her family at 6 months old, leaving behind 7 older brothers and a twin sister. In the 12 years she's been away, Izzy has faced hardships no chi...
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I sometimes wonder what I will be remembered for. Or if I will be remembered at all. Over the years, I have done little to ensure I am anything more than a shadow in the scheme of the world. For most of my life, I've made a conscious effort to hide. To be nothing. To fade into the background of everyone else's existence.
And while I have welcomed my role as nothing more than a slithering shadow with open arms, a part of me can't help but imagine what will happen when I am even less than that. I had no defining traits. I had no mentionable accomplishments. I had nothing worth remembering about me. I was quiet. Ghost like even when I was alive. Skittish and broken. As easy to discard as yesterday's newspaper or a chewed up piece of gum.
The thought made me sadder than it should have. I'd always been content to be what I was. To hide in the shadows of others and keep out of anyone's line of sight. But a part of me hated the idea that it would be the same even in death. I didn't think about it often. I try not to let my death be a ruminating thought. But at times like this, in a place like this, I couldn't help but let the question take over my mind.
My eyes jumped from headstone to headstone as we drove down the long, winding road through the cemetery. I wondered about each one of them. Who they were, how they died, who they'd left behind, and why they were remembered. I wondered who they'd loved, and who they'd wished they would have been. Graves stretched across the dying green lawns of the Brinley county cemetery, each housing another lost soul no one would ever see again. We were close to my mothers.
My heart was stuck in my throat, and try as I might, I hadn't managed to shake the feeling. I was nervous about seeing her. I wasn't sure why, considering she was just a slab of stone in a lawn now, but a part of me couldn't help but tremble in discomfort and anticipation at the idea that I was finally going to see my mom after all this time. She would be pissed if she knew I'd waited over three months to come and see her for the first time since her memorial. She would complain that not even her own daughter loved her, and that she'd been waiting too long for me to stop being a wuss and came to see her.
I could imagine the conversation we would have. Her hurling insults, and me just ducking my head and taking it. It was as vivid in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. A pang of sorrow shot through me at the thought, and I held myself back from diving deeper into it. My brain was hazy this morning. Empty and easily distractible. The rabbit hole was wide open. Tempting and dangerous, waiting for me to slip up and allow myself to fall inside with no possible escape. I'd felt it when I woke up, my brain filled with those damaging thoughts that always accompanied any and all interactions with my mother.
She'd always dominated everything. Down to the very thoughts in my brain, she would always rule over every inch of my existence. Her and Marley. Though, in very different ways. They had always been the dominating forces in my life. They were the reason I was what I am today. Every piece of who I am. They were both the best and worst parts of my personality. And I couldn't decide if I hated or loved them for it. They'd given this to me. This pain, this anger, this sadness, this indecision. It was their doing, and in some ways, in equal parts. My mother had been making me question my existence since it began. She'd never allowed me a place in the world to call my own. She'd wounded my brain too many times to count and given me this never ending need to please the unappeasable.
