Somewhere I know this might be it, this maybe when. Maybe it will stop. I can hope. Writing this some time ago I never had the balls to put it in on here. I was told it's not the right time. When will it be? Twenty years? Thirty years? My death bed? Some may read this and think "get over it". You've not lived it. Sometimes during the year it crosses my mind but in October it begins to scratch my brain. It's coming. Open season. Maybe now I can and maybe, just maybe I'm not opening Pandora's box...

Wake Me Up When November Ends...

This may never see the light of day buy I'm writing it anyway. So if you see this and it disappears, I've changed my mind. There's a November thing that can't be explained, but I'm going to try. When I write about things that are bothering me it helps. Writing about this before (not here) scared me. Similar to that child like fear of the dark or monsters in the closet. If I put it on paper, the monster is real and not just in my head. The other day I realized its been 15 years, this November will be 15 years. Two people share this with me, we were together when it started and we've been together since. This is not the tie that binds us, but its a large thread woven into the fabric of our friendship. A "curse" sounds very over the top, mellow dramatic or whatever. There really isn't another name for it except "November" for the three of us. Usually I can be cryptic and vague on here and only tell exactly how much needs to be known. This can't be this way. Fuck it, here it goes...

When your fifteen it's not possible to look at your friend and think "dead". No matter how much blood there is, and not just blood. Even when the air is heavy with gun smoke. You can taste it. She's not moving. Some part of me knew and maybe that's what kept my feet weighted to floor. Kept me from going to her. Kept the nightmares from being worse than they were. When the cops arrived he couldn't hide the surprise on his face when I asked if she was alright. "She's gone, she never knew what hit her." He wanted to be sure I knew she didn't suffer. Not when it's a .357. She was here, and now she's not. Really part of me thought I could be wrong, maybe it was her leg he hit (there was blood there) and not her head. The whole thing is surreal, parts are in slow motion, yet I remember every detail as if it happened yesterday. The fear and complete shock on my two best friend's faces, must be exactly what they saw on mine.

That's where the November thing started. The following year my best friend's grandmother had a stroke and our friend Tim Purdy dropped dead at a movie theatre. We started to wonder. Two years later our grandparents were in a severe car accident and my husband lost his job, on the same day. We started to dread November. I won't go thru a whole timeline here, just some of the worst. Stella was shot on November 19th. Tim collapsed on November 19th, they pulled the plug November 21st. My stepmother lost her fight with cancer on November 19th. My son was mauled by a dog November 9th and my transmission went out two days later. My husband left on November 17th. My mother was in a car accident November 1st. My son had stitches in his head November 28th. My grandma passed away November 6th. I think you may get my point. I counted my blessings last November when the only thing that happened to me was my refrigerator quit working. The bottom line is it affected all three of us. Sometimes it's minor inconveniences, vehicles breaking or losing jobs. Death has touched this month repeatedly, no birth days in my family. We dread November and I'm tired of it. My original plan was to move to Colorado around the 15th of November if either of the jobs came thru. Screw the November thing. In the back of my mind something was saying do you really want to do that? With fourteen bad November's passed do you want to chance that the 15th one will be different somehow? My thought was maybe it was a good time to thumb my nose at it. Start something new. With the track record we have in this month it's probably not a good idea. Wake me up when November ends.