The Kitchen Counter At the Old House

Loosely inspired by Prompt 3 from 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts: 501 Prompts to Unleash Creativity and Spark Inspiration by Tarn Wilson.  

    I'm leaning against the kitchen counter at the old house, staring across the yard to the barn that wasn't ours.  We parked our cars next to that barn.  Only my car was there.  There was a little creek, barely a trickle most of the year, but you still had to cross a narrow bridge to get to or from the house.  Carrying groceries was a hassle because of the walk, and you cursed the winter or the summer for being frigid or stifling hot.  But there were two gorgeous trees flanking the steps to the front porch that turned the most brilliant shade of orange in the fall.  And there was always a breeze caressing your face like a lover.  And that made it all fine.

    I'm leaning against the kitchen counter staring out the window.  I'm thinking of the porcelain sink and how many glasses I managed to shatter while washing the dishes.  Because porcelain has never yet learned to love glass.  And I always forgot that until it was too late and I heard the shatter or saw blood in the water.  The glasses were yours.  The blood was my own.

    I'm leaning against the counter in the old house.  The refrigerator died and it had to be replaced.  And a second hand washer and dryer.  My god, we're adults now.  We're grown.  I never thought I'd make it.  But only adults buy refrigerators.

    I'm leaning against the kitchen counter in the old house.  There's a cow pond in the pasture beyond the back yard.  The man let us go there and I caught sunfish and killed two carps because they swallow the hook.  We shot clay discs over the water and I was always the best shot.  No one liked to admit it.  The cow pond at the base of the mountain calls to me in a way the ocean never could.

    I'm standing at the kitchen counter in the old house, looking out into the yard.  The windows are open and I'm not alone.  The breeze brings the scent of smoke and cold beer and the sound of raucous voices and laughter.  I'm not alone and it wraps around me in a comforting way that I didn't know I'd eventually miss.

    I'm leaning against the kitchen counter at the old house, looking at the other side of the room.  There's a striped arm chair and an ancient television and that's all.  No one ever sat there or watched that TV.  But they sat in the room just the same.  Empty and waiting for something.

    I am leaning against the kitchen counter at the old house.  Empty and waiting.

    I am leaning against the kitchen counter at the old house.  A house I haven't seen for many years.  Isn't it odd how memories work?  I couldn't tell you what I did a month ago, or a week, or probably even a day.  But I can let my eyes glaze over and remember an innocuous moment from fifteen years ago with such clarity that I find myself leaning against the kitchen counter in the old house.  As though I'm really there, feeling that countertop pressed against my body, feeling my bare feet on the floor, breathing in fresh air, knowing exactly the way the light looked at different times of the day.  I'm standing there, you can't convince me otherwise.  A girl in her twenties flawed and broken, but in a different way than the broken and flawed girl I am now at almost forty.  

    I'm not that girl, but oh god, I'm still that girl.  I just know more, too much more.  And less, so much less than she did.  I don't get to warn her.  She doesn't get to know.  She wouldn't understand.  I still don't understand.  

    I think she had hope.  I don't envy that.  Time has taught me how much that will inevitably hurt.  I know she was naïve.  And I do envy that.  Ignorance really is bliss sometimes.  She doesn't yet know what I do.  She's innocent.  She hasn't made all my mistakes.  She will.  I think I hate her.  I'm jealous.  I envy her for what's to come. And I pity her too, for what follows.  

    I'm happy in that kitchen.  For a short moment, a blink of an eye in my life, I'll be the happiest I've ever been.  The most at peace.  The most loved.  She won't know it then.  She'll be confused and guilty.  She'll have doubts and she won't realize she shouldn't until it's too late.  But for a tiny moment, everything will be perfect.  

    And then there will be years of regret.  Years of bitterness and sorrow.  And then she'll be me, envying herself.  And I'll be someone else again, someone I can't fathom, just like that girl could never have fathomed me.  And I can wonder if this new me, this older me, will be wiser than I am, or happier, or the same as I am, but I'll never know.  Not until it happens and then, for good or bad, it will be too late.  I won't be me, I'll be her.

    But tonight, I'm leaning against the kitchen counter in the old house, looking out the window.