The one possession I had from my old life; my blanket still holds court in my house. It’s pink and fuzzy and warm. Large enough to cover me when I was living in the car but too small to be of any use. But I keep it, clinging to it as though a life preserver. The one thread attached to my old life, the only thing I took from the house that wasn’t really mine to begin with.
Clair, Alex’s daughter had come down for her usual visit in the morning while her mother ran errands. Dragging behind her, her mother’s pink fuzzy blanket. She hung on tightly as she climbed up on the couch to sit beside me and cuddle while we watched our morning movie. The blanket was warm and smelled like her mother. Probably the reason she would drag it behind her around the house. As if it were the train to her nightgown. Snuggled up under the blanket, watching tv was one of my favorite things to do with her. Unless you count our indoor Olympics, which was always fun until something got broken.
When her mom came home, she ran upstairs to greet her leaving the blanket behind on my couch. Later that day Rowan came home from program and immediately grabbed the blanket and covered himself with it. That was his thing, take any blanket he could find and claim it as his own. After several days of bouncing between Clair and Rowan, Alex noticed it on the couch and angrily asked how her blanket ended up on Rowans couch. I apologized, told her Clair had left it behind and she could have it back. Her response was sharp and she said, “No, if Rowan used it, I don’t want it back.” She didn’t want something that had been contaminated by my son, who she considered a breeding house full of germs and somehow filthy.
Comments like that boiled my blood. My son was not full of germs or filth. He was washed religiously and showered daily. Spite wanted me to force it back to her but I knew, deep down, she would dispose of it because it was now contaminated. Rowan liked it so it stayed on our couch.
That was until the day we ran. I grabbed some clothing, Rowans’ favorite sleeping blanket, our pillows and on my way out spied the blanket. It could be useful, so I grabbed it and walked out the door.
I used it my entire journey through living in my car and when I moved into my apartment it was the only blanket I had. Laundered and clean it sits at the end of my bed. Folded neatly but it’s history is not neat and tidy. It survived hell alongside me, through cold and rainstorms. From my back seat to the front. I look at that blanket proudly. What was once a symbol of disgust now a proud warden in my new home. Funny how contamination becomes comfort when you’re the one surviving.
Here I am surviving one pink fuzzy relic at a time,
K.
I'm Still Here. Somehow... 