Voices

I have enjoyed listening to the song by Tim Mcgraw called "I Hear Voices" which is about the voices in the past. The truth is we all hear them and whether we listen to them or not is a choice we make on a daily basis.
 To a certain degree we have become accustomed to them as we use it as a daily tool of survival. It is almost the voice of mom or reason telling us what is right from wrong. Then in other situations it is the voice of the past that scares us. I will share my voices with you so you can get to know me a little better. My mother's voice is absent throughout my life and when I do hear it it is from my youth then at the end of her life. When my father left us as a result of her cheating I cried so much for my dad. She was at the sink cutting potatoes chanting "I hate him, I hate him" as he drove away and I begged her to stop and insisted I wanted my dad and she turned to me and said "shut up, it's your fault he left! I hate you! and with the knife now at my throat she said "you are no longer my daughter, you will never be my daughter again! I hate you, I hate you! It's your fault he's gone!" She was insecure and very vulnerable and when she learned I was pregnant at 13 she was very angry. Not because I was pregnant by a relative because I told her who the father was instead she slapped me and accused me of having slept with her boyfriend who is the father of my youngest brother. She was present in name only for the rest of my life. One day I called her, the day my divorce was final because for the first time I needed her and she refused to speak with me. So there was no voice heard that day. Later during my second marriage I called her and she answered the phone and was in a good mood and talkative. We spoke for an hour about so many things. It was a great conversation and I was so happy until the end when she said "see how we can get along and if you had stayed here close to me everything would have been better for you and then Regina (my 1st daughter) wouldn't have died, it was your fault she died because you took her with you". I hung up the phone and that was the last time we ever had a long conversation. Three and a half years ago I was featured in San Benito, Texas and was interviewed on television then the following day I was featured in my hometown of Mission, Texas and after my reading in Mission i went to my mother's house. I walked in the room where she was bedridden and she was sitting up on her hospital bed and I sat next to her. I asked her if she had seen the interview and she said yes. She told me I looked very pretty then she said "I'm so proud of you" and I looked into her eyes which were glazed over probably from medication and she said, "don't ever stop doing what you're doing". This was the first time I had looked into her eyes since the day when I was nine years old and she held that knife at my throat. She died the following month.
This is my mother's voice I just told you about. Every person who has ever crossed our path has left their voice within us and we hear it speak to us every time we think of them. Sometimes we give voice to things for example for me it's the scenery which surrounds me. The hills call out my name asking me to come to them and as the end of my lease is approaching I will be answering that call. Last Saturday I had a bit of an accident as I was riding my bike in the wee hours of the morning enjoying the cold air and starlit sky and I fell off my bike. My injuries are minimal and well worth it. When I am stuck in traffic on my way out to the Hill Country I use my time wisely and sit and enjoy the thin lines of the horizon and they serenade me. It is nature's way of sharing its voice with me and I listen. Nature and thin lines are my partner, my husband, my lover and my existence. I finally belong.