Read Online Down and Out in Bugtussle by Stephanie McAfee - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephanie McAfee
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get kickin’ again, but I just don’t feel like it yet. The truth is that I still love Mason McKenzie and I always will, but I know that it’s finally over between us and that hurts so bad every time I think about it. Maybe I just need to be sad—just feel it—and take my time mourning the death of a relationship that I held up in my mind and in my heart as the Holy Grail of Happiness since we were kids. I can’t believe how wrong I was about that. I also can’t believe that I got all liquored up and almost went home with Logan Hatter last night. That’s just what I need to do. Strike up an old flame that fizzled out years ago from lack of a spark. What a great plan. Jeez. Logan Hatter has to stay in the friend zone. I literally and figuratively do not need to screw that up. Relief will have to come from somewhere else and, in the meantime, I guess I have no choice but to tough it out and suffer throughthe consequences of my decisions. Dammit! I hate that. Consequences suck! I don’t like living with them, but what else can I do? Maybe I should never leave the house again except to go to work and walk Buster Loo. Or maybe I should’ve gone to church this morning, because I always leave feeling better than I did when I got there.
I look down at Buster Loo, who is snoozing with his snout stuck straight up in the air. How I wish I could be so satisfied. I look out the window and see the buttercups have started to blossom. Early bloomers, as my grandma used to say. Gramma Jones sure seemed to have had life figured out. And she lived it so simply. She was never rich. Not even close. She never had a big fancy car or went on ritzy vacations. She had a cozy little home, a beautiful yard, her garden club, her ladies’ Sunday school class, and me. Gramma Jones was the most peaceful soul on the planet, even after suffering so much. She lost her husband to prostate cancer and later buried her only son; yet she wasn’t bitter or miserable or envious of anyone. She just lived her life and took care of her home and took care of me and seemed to be perfectly happy passing along tidbits of wisdom when the occasions presented themselves to do so.
Maybe I’m looking in all the wrong places. Maybe it’s not, as that noodle-balling weirdo at the Italian restaurant said, about that house and that job and that man. Maybe it’s just about me. Wow. That’s some pretty scary shit right there. I’ve always banked on external things to float my boatload of happiness. Like having my own art gallery and living with Mason McKenzie in his ocean-side home in Florida. I thought that was it for me and, looking back now, it’s hard to believe how bad I wanted it, how much faith I’d invested in it, and how much power I had given to the idea of thedream. It’s even more shocking how desperate I was to escape it at the very end. I need to get back in touch with my soul, whatever that means, but I’m afraid I’ve spent so much time giving myself over to an illusion that my soul has become the ghost that just shows up now and then to haunt me.
A commercial comes on for a local furniture store advertising a zero-percent-interest-twelve-month-same-as-cash deal, and I start thinking that maybe a new couch and love seat might help my feelings. I’m wondering what time that place opens up on Sunday when it dawns on me I’m reverting to external fixes. Didn’t I just figure that out? I stare at the television and try to ignore the uncomfortable notion that I have to go inside my own wacky head and misguided heart if I really want to fix what’s bugging me. Which is me. I’m bugging myself. I don’t like to think about my own problems. I like to solve other people’s problems, preferably with crazy shenanigans and wild stunts that further distract me from my own. It’s so much easier that way because all the consequences get to move in with them and not with me.
I don’t want to analyze myself too much because if I do, I’m afraid I’ll
I look down at Buster Loo, who is snoozing with his snout stuck straight up in the air. How I wish I could be so satisfied. I look out the window and see the buttercups have started to blossom. Early bloomers, as my grandma used to say. Gramma Jones sure seemed to have had life figured out. And she lived it so simply. She was never rich. Not even close. She never had a big fancy car or went on ritzy vacations. She had a cozy little home, a beautiful yard, her garden club, her ladies’ Sunday school class, and me. Gramma Jones was the most peaceful soul on the planet, even after suffering so much. She lost her husband to prostate cancer and later buried her only son; yet she wasn’t bitter or miserable or envious of anyone. She just lived her life and took care of her home and took care of me and seemed to be perfectly happy passing along tidbits of wisdom when the occasions presented themselves to do so.
Maybe I’m looking in all the wrong places. Maybe it’s not, as that noodle-balling weirdo at the Italian restaurant said, about that house and that job and that man. Maybe it’s just about me. Wow. That’s some pretty scary shit right there. I’ve always banked on external things to float my boatload of happiness. Like having my own art gallery and living with Mason McKenzie in his ocean-side home in Florida. I thought that was it for me and, looking back now, it’s hard to believe how bad I wanted it, how much faith I’d invested in it, and how much power I had given to the idea of thedream. It’s even more shocking how desperate I was to escape it at the very end. I need to get back in touch with my soul, whatever that means, but I’m afraid I’ve spent so much time giving myself over to an illusion that my soul has become the ghost that just shows up now and then to haunt me.
A commercial comes on for a local furniture store advertising a zero-percent-interest-twelve-month-same-as-cash deal, and I start thinking that maybe a new couch and love seat might help my feelings. I’m wondering what time that place opens up on Sunday when it dawns on me I’m reverting to external fixes. Didn’t I just figure that out? I stare at the television and try to ignore the uncomfortable notion that I have to go inside my own wacky head and misguided heart if I really want to fix what’s bugging me. Which is me. I’m bugging myself. I don’t like to think about my own problems. I like to solve other people’s problems, preferably with crazy shenanigans and wild stunts that further distract me from my own. It’s so much easier that way because all the consequences get to move in with them and not with me.
I don’t want to analyze myself too much because if I do, I’m afraid I’ll
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