THE FINAL CHAPTER
The propane tank is dry, the water has long been cancelled, and the “For Rent” sign hangs crooked on the rusted front door of my metaphorical trailer.
My years of a life filled with drama have finally passed, their legacy little more than some gently healed emotional scars and faded memories dulled with the passing of time. Lipstick Girl has been replaced by Chapstick Grandma, a person I sometimes don’t recognize in the mirror, but a woman I wouldn’t mind getting to know better.
No longer do I meet the sordid qualifications as a Jerry Springer subject, and although I was once contacted by a producer of the show to chat about a potential invitation to be one of Jerry’s special guests, that’s one muddy road I won’t drag my kids down.
Skeletons stacked together, a mess of tangled bones, are out of the closet and have been laid to rest in a shallow grave, possibly to be exhumed one day if the need ever arises. The dirty laundry airing on the line has been bleached by the heat of the sun and now lies folded in the back of a bottom drawer next to the other clothes that no longer fit.
And although there will be an empty chair, or two, around the holiday table, and I don’t imagine I’ll ever wind up inheriting that family silver, I stand tall in my power that I had the courage to shine my light into the shadows of the dark corners, a place where secrets like to hide. I have learned that we are all imperfectly perfect, and that we do the best we can with the circumstances life gives us: victims can become perpetrators and sinners, saints, and in the end, all we can hope is that we have learned from our mistakes.
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