Tuesday - Playing with Firearms
Oct. 25th, 2005 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreOn the drive into work this morning, I was thinking about crossroads. I was thinking of those small decisions that we make that have a big impact on ourselves and those around us.
Once, many years ago when I was much, much younger, I was looking for a pencil in a desk drawer. I came across a white cloth in the back of the drawer, wrapped around something small and hard. The whole bundle was about the size of my fist. For the record, I have very small hands.
I unwound the fabric and found inside a derringer, a tiny pistol that fit in the palm of my hand. I could tell that it was very old, but it was shiny and well kept, with a mother of pearl handle. It looked like a toy to me. Playing with it, I cocked back the trigger. I could not figure out how to un-cock it, except by pulling the trigger. I figured that a gun this old, left like this, would be unloaded. I pointed it around the apartment and even at my own head, getting a small thrill at the idea of pulling the trigger just to hear it click.
But I was raised by wise parents. I had been told over and over growing up that there is no such thing as an unloaded gun, that you never point a gun at anyone you don't want to kill. So, just to be sure, I opened the front door and took aim at the sky. I pulled the trigger.
The derringer was loaded.
There gun went off.
I remember how my hands shook as I re-wrapped the derringer in the cloth and hid it back in the drawer where I found it. I went back to bed and pulled the cover over my head and lay there trembling for the two hours.
The person who would have found me is the man who is now my husband. He would not have known that it was just an accident by a stupid and child-like college girl he had recently begun a relationship with.
I wrote a poem about it, and he came across it a few weeks later, though it was not one I ever meant to show him.
I was standing on my father's front porch with him shortly after that. "I would have thought it was suicide, I wouldn't have known," he told me when he dropped the empty shell casing into my palm. His face was gray and very grim. I looked at the shell and began to tremble all over again. I dropped it into the soil of the flower bed next to the sidewalk and used my big toe to bury it, then I buried my face into his chest. We never brought the incident up between us again.
There are times when I think about that day, and marvel about it. I wonder what my father would think if he knew that buried in the flower bed a few feet from my his front door, there still lies the shell of a bullet that almost killed his only daughter.
I made a decision on an Autumn day, not unlike today, and it seemed silly and small the moment I made it. A few seconds later, I realized that it might have been the most important and critical decision I would ever make.
Crossroads are funny things. Some decisions you forget about and never realize the impact. Others, you can't forget, no matter how many years go by.
Once, many years ago when I was much, much younger, I was looking for a pencil in a desk drawer. I came across a white cloth in the back of the drawer, wrapped around something small and hard. The whole bundle was about the size of my fist. For the record, I have very small hands.
I unwound the fabric and found inside a derringer, a tiny pistol that fit in the palm of my hand. I could tell that it was very old, but it was shiny and well kept, with a mother of pearl handle. It looked like a toy to me. Playing with it, I cocked back the trigger. I could not figure out how to un-cock it, except by pulling the trigger. I figured that a gun this old, left like this, would be unloaded. I pointed it around the apartment and even at my own head, getting a small thrill at the idea of pulling the trigger just to hear it click.
But I was raised by wise parents. I had been told over and over growing up that there is no such thing as an unloaded gun, that you never point a gun at anyone you don't want to kill. So, just to be sure, I opened the front door and took aim at the sky. I pulled the trigger.
The derringer was loaded.
There gun went off.
I remember how my hands shook as I re-wrapped the derringer in the cloth and hid it back in the drawer where I found it. I went back to bed and pulled the cover over my head and lay there trembling for the two hours.
The person who would have found me is the man who is now my husband. He would not have known that it was just an accident by a stupid and child-like college girl he had recently begun a relationship with.
I wrote a poem about it, and he came across it a few weeks later, though it was not one I ever meant to show him.
I was standing on my father's front porch with him shortly after that. "I would have thought it was suicide, I wouldn't have known," he told me when he dropped the empty shell casing into my palm. His face was gray and very grim. I looked at the shell and began to tremble all over again. I dropped it into the soil of the flower bed next to the sidewalk and used my big toe to bury it, then I buried my face into his chest. We never brought the incident up between us again.
There are times when I think about that day, and marvel about it. I wonder what my father would think if he knew that buried in the flower bed a few feet from my his front door, there still lies the shell of a bullet that almost killed his only daughter.
I made a decision on an Autumn day, not unlike today, and it seemed silly and small the moment I made it. A few seconds later, I realized that it might have been the most important and critical decision I would ever make.
Crossroads are funny things. Some decisions you forget about and never realize the impact. Others, you can't forget, no matter how many years go by.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 04:52 pm (UTC)I understand the sentiment, though. Danger is a very attractive thing. Knowing that you COULD be stupid and pull the trigger on a gun you hadn't even checked -- it's like realizing you have the power to do something truly evil, and then exercising your power to do something good or wise. Evil is attractive. I'm glad you had the wisdom and the strength to make the correct choice. I'm glad you are here in our lives! HFAF just wouldn't be the same without you! And neither would I!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 05:24 pm (UTC)The danger, the curiosity about the sensation of pulling the trigger, the thought of the sound of the clicking sound as the barrel turned, were all very appealing.
The gun didn't even look real - it's very pretty and cute. A water pistol looks more threatening than this derringer. I would have never even though of playing like that with the Rugar that Jeff also happens to own.
I was a very strange creature at the age of 20. I was at times very responsible and grown up from doing what had to be done during my mother's sickness and death. Other parts of my psyche were still stuck at the age of 12, when my mother took ill. I was prone to irresponsible and child-like behavior, including risky and dangerous play.
On some days I confess that I think I made the wrong decision, though the fallout would have been devastating for Jeff and probably others. This was only a few short years after all my notorious talk of suicide in high school, when it was a great way to garner attention. Everyone would have assumed it was on purpose.
The moment has long passed. At this point, even on the day's I'm not glad to be alive, I am at least resigned to it, which might be why that day still haunts and intrigues me so.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 06:25 pm (UTC)I, for one, would have been devestated if you had died!!! You are the closest thing to a sister that I have, and you're at least partially responsible for saving my life and what little was left of my sanity. Those two summers with the Hardings gave me something to live for -- a reason to believe that I COULD escape Robstown!
You probably know how messed up I was after Rorie was born. My PPD and whacked out hormones had me closer to suicide than I'd ever come before. While I've been feeling MUCH better for quite a while, every bit of my life-hating came to a halt the last time Daddy cried in front of me, just a few months ago. That night, I swore to Rorie that I would never again even contemplate suicide because I now had a very real understanding of the pain of losing a parent, and I would never purposely put her through that. I still don't think much of this life at times, but that's when I live it for Rorie.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 06:47 pm (UTC)I don't threaten suicide; I decided at the age of 17 that forcing people to "rescue" me from myself is a self-centered mind fuck on the people who care about me.
During a bout of depression in recent years, the knowledge that it would destroy Jeff utterly was enough to make me put the idea away.
Now that I am a mother, I have another reason. I've met the children of suicides, and it's one of the worse things a parent could do to a child. Children internalize and wonder, "What did I do to cause this? What was wrong with me that made my parent not want to live?" They are never quite right or normal again.
For the record, I don't play with guns anymore, either.