Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Eeyore's Daughter

When I was growing up the character I related to in A.A. Milne’s books was Eeyore.
He was the doubter.
The naysayer.
The one who bemoaned it all.
The sarcastic, melancholy little
donkey who was always losing his tail.
Eeyore thought that whatever could go wrong
would go wrong
and it did.
Pooh, on the other hand,
always expected things to work out
and somehow they did.
Pooh annoyed me.
Whenever I expected anything it never worked out.
When I expected a birthday party as a kid,
no one would come,
or my parents would fight,
and my dad would end up walking out
and my mother would go to bed crying and I’d be left
standing in the hall
with nothing.
Same for Christmas.
I learned real fast that I was going to be disappointed
by the people who supposedly loved me.
So I guess it’s only normal that I would relate the most to the character
who believed
the worst would happen.
We shared a common heartache,
Eeyore and me.
I sat alone in the corner of my room
looking out at the world through his eyes.
It was a bleak sight,
full of greys and murk.
Gone was the yellow sun
and the pink blossom of wildflowers.
Gone was the sweet smell of honeysuckle and roses.
In their place,
black and mud.
Fear and dread.
Now that I’m older,
I’m trying to change.
I’m trying to unlearn and be,
and hope.
In five days it will be my birthday.
The day I’ve dreaded most of my life.
But this time I’m determined not to succumb
to the past.
I will wake-up and greet the sun,
or the clouds,
or whatever comes that day,
even
if it’s a damn tornado,
and
I will eat cake and ice cream,
and I will tell myself I’m loved,
and I won’t spend the day
looking for my tail.