Sunday, June 19, 2011

Hermit Crab Confessionals


I wish I had a good reason why I stopped blogging.

I've attempted and abandoned at least five different posts during the last six weeks of radio silence. One stale, unfocused idea after another- posts that put me to sleep, literally.

It doesn't feel right. My blog, when well kept, was the best habit I ever picked up. It kept me engaged, thoughtful and off of the Real Housewives. It saw me through a career jump, a couple ugly break ups, bad days (flies take over my apartment), really bad days (my tooth falls out) and all the other zig zags of well lived life in NYC. It connected me to people- friends, acquaintances and even a few international strangers who cared or were bored enough to follow me.

I miss it, and I want to come back. But even now when I've dedicated my evening to pushing out a post no matter what, my fingers hover over the keyboard, lost.

So here goes, the only thing I can think to write about:

When I was 11 years old I came home from a sleepover with a new pet hermit crab.

I didn't like him. I don't even think I named him. It was my friend's brilliant idea to beg her dad to drive us to the pet store to buy crabs. I pretended I wasn't scared of it. It looked like a giant roach stuffed into a shell. I reluctantly carried his plastic tank home the next morning. It was lined with magenta rocks and a couple branches we plucked from my friend's backyard. The nameless crab only came out of his shell to eat the pellets of food I plopped on his branch every day. The dislike seemed mutual.

Two weeks later my family went on vacation. I didn't bring the hermit crab. I left a pile of food on his branch. I was 11. I figured he would eat when he was hungry. A week later, when we returned from our vacation, my bedroom smelled like a dead crab. I poked him. He didn't writher.

I killed the crab.

I stuffed his tank in my Jansport and snuck out to our backyard. I nervously dug a hole and buried him with his magenta rocks. I made a cross over the mound with the branches from his tank. Kneeling over the pile of dirt, I searched for something to say. Suddenly I started sobbing- slowly then hysterically. I pictured him hungry and thirsty and dead. I apologized to him frantically.

I composed myself before I went back inside my house. I didn't tell my mom. In fact, I didn't tell anybody for at least a decade.

Fifteen years later, far more often than any sane person should, I think about that no-name hermit crab. I think about his little magenta rock grave behind my neighbor's swing set. It makes me feel nervous and guilty all over again.

I realized the only way to get rid of the hermit crab that haunts me is to publicly confess.

Mom, God, Blog- I killed that no-name crab. And I'm sorry.

Hermit crab skeletons out of my closet, I'm ready to come back blog.

3 comments:

  1. I love it! If it make u feel any better, hermit crabs dont generally live that long.

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  2. I had a friend in college that had 4 hermit crabs, one of whom was an escape artist. At least yours didn't escape and die hidden in your room. Getting that stink out would've been much trickier.

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