Train Wreck

Photo by Mehmet Pinarci/Flickr

By Tanisha Wallace Porath

“You are a train wreck!”

“I’m a train wreck?”

“Yes, a total train wreck.”

“Why? Why am I a train wreck?”

“Because you can’t let go of Peter.”

I’m the fucking train wreck, I’m the train wreck? You… your ex-wife is a macadamia, a certified borderline personality and you picked her, and you always talk about her—she left you six months ago and I can’t let Peter go?

The last sentence only travelled as far as my head. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or bring up the memory of his ex-wife. I sit quietly on the passenger side of his oversized truck, wondering if what he had said was true. Am I still a train wreck? Will I ever be normal? Will anyone ever see me as normal or am I destined to be “the young widow” for the rest of my days? He grabs my hand and kisses it twice in quick succession. He thinks I’m upset with him but really I’m just lost in thought. We’re headed to a faraway destination, a cabin on a lake and I have two more hours in the car with him, so my decision is clear. Create a box and put his statement into it, open later. My plan falls apart about nine seconds after I create it. I want to talk to him if we are going to be in a relationship. I want to be open and honest but am I too honest? I fear my mouth will betray me and hurting him isn’t an option. When I was married, I could crush Peter’s soul with one or two well crafted, cruel, and just timely enough sentences. I no longer want to be that person. I stay quiet. Oh here we go, I’m talking about Peter again.

He starts asking me question after question, sensing that I’m anywhere but here in his truck. He’s right—the last thirty minutes of this ride have been me obsessing about if people are ever the same after trauma. Do we show our scars forever or do we get an amazing concealer from MAC and cover them? At what point does my inability to let Peter go put a damper on my ability to move forward with another man? This man.

I start to drift off into a spiral of “What ifs”—all pointless but all very relevant to this particular spiral. The worst part of the shame spiral is that I am miles away from a cell tower, headed to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, so I can’t even reach my best friend and her calming, logical words. But since I am in the middle of nowhere, deep in the valley of Idaho, her calming words are out of my reach.

We stop at a lookout point because he wants to show me all of the things he loves about where he lives. We get out of the truck and he comes over to my side. I jump out of the truck and before my feet barely touch the gravel path, he grabs me by my waist and kisses me square on my lips. My mind panics, but when our lips are together I can no longer remember what I was panicked about. I am now panicking because I can’t remember the first panic. Dear God, I am a train wreck. He grabs my hand and walks me over to a steep cliff. My hand start to sweat and he tells me it’s okay, he’s got me. I realize he does have me but more importantly, I have myself. I’m no longer a scared fifteen-year-old that needs to be protected. I am also no longer the scared thirty-eight-year old that needs my husband to stand up for me. My scars are showing but so is my strength. In my head I start to sing that Alanis Morissette song about how she is sick but she’s pretty. Perhaps I am all of the things not just one. As we stand above the vastness of where he lives, among the trees and cliffs, I turn and face him.

“I am a train wreck.”

“So am I,” he says.

He squeezes my hand as we stand together, silent. My last decision before I decide to stop making decisions is to accept my scars, show them to the world, and try my best to avoid fancy concealer.

•••

TANISHA WALLACE PORATH was born a poor black girl in…well actually she had a pretty middle class existence in Anchorage, Alaska, where she was born and raised. She studied photography at an art college in Seattle. Soon after she graduated, she moved to Portland, Oregon, with her husband and started a career as an editorial photographer.  Some of her clients have included: Willamette Week, The Oregonian, and several other periodicals. She began writing professionally the spring after her husband died in 2013. Her work has appeared in several online periodicals, including Full Grown People. She has two roommates—her daughter Bronny and her son Duke. Currently, she’s writing her first memoir and pitching agents.

Read more FGP essays by Tanisha Porath.