Time moves like an old man who has no one to go home to,
so strolls through the grocery store:
touching jars of jelly,
tapping on melons,
studying labels on soup cans,
straining to remember the last ingredient in his wife's split pea soup
that made it perfect....
and failing.
Waiting
and
wanting
feel the same to me lately.
I am fixed and frozen
in a swirl of change-
dragged
and damaged along the way-
I am no good at this.
Most days, I feel hope blossoming within me, and I find strength in this. I feel it taking root, sprouting new leaves, straining to reach new heights.
Most days.
Today is not one of those days.
Today:
My neck is tired from holding my chin up. My eyes feel swollen, burning as they push within the sockets. My body aches from holding onto the hope. I feel the hope itself, wilting, dragging me down with it. I find myself falling from the new heights I was reaching for, sliding back down into this hole, this place of disgusting introspection and self-analyzation, the place worn comfortable by my tears and loneliness.
In this place, I don't want to be positive. And even if I did, I don't need to, and I can't.
I don't even want anyone else to do hope's job for me: I don't want anyone to tell me it will be okay, or that I will get a job soon, or that I will meet someone who craves being with me, or that it's okay to be alone, or that I deserve the best, or that they know how I feel, or that I'm beautiful or good or smart or sweet or fucking nuts.
I give in: to the negative, the sadness, the pity, the endless ocean of bullshit lies I used to believe. I feel my mind and my heart battling it out again: the logical vs. the illogical. The feeling vs. the knowing. The patience vs. the gluttony.I don't know which side is winning, which side I am willing to lose. I'm just too fucking tired today to even figure it out.
In my head, (and in my heart), I know this isn't where I need to be. I know this isn't what is healthy for me, or helpful, or even truthful. Yet...
here I am.
Again.
Fuck.
I know it won't last long...maybe just for today this time.
But this day? It will last forever.
This day?
I want to scream at myself, within myself, and get my shit together....I want to let the hope grow like a weed, and take over, smother and strangle the negative, the painful, the lonely things I'm feeling. But...
not today.
1. We need a bigger house. My mom, my sister, me, my girl, my brother, his girlfriend, and 3 dogs....all in the kitchen while cooking dinner. CLUSTER.FUCK.
2. My brother and I have passed down to my sister the awesome past-time of throwing bouncy balls in the kitchen, at approximately 45mph, at the same time as #1 above.
3. Contrary to popular belief, my brother does not like getting hit in the eye once (or TWICE, actually) by a bouncy ball travelling approximately 45mph.
4. My dogs like bouncy balls.
5. My boxer likes them so much that he ate one tonight.
6. Now I know why we were short a bouncy ball before #2 above, and also why he was trying to eat my fern yesterday.
7. You can indeed google "Can a dog poop a bouncy ball?".
8. You won't necessarily find the answers calming or helpful.
9. You can get 6 loud individuals to shut up if you feed them pasta, bread, and salad.
10. Except for the little one, who decided she wanted pb&j.
11. Paramour's lead Haley sounds like a pirate in the song Only Exception. ("You...AAARG!...the only exception")
12. You can't understand Taylor Swift's lyrics even if said people are stuffing their faces in silence.
13. There's a lot of gas in this house.
14. In fact, sometimes you have to sniff the abandoned shoes and socks by the couch to be sure it isn't stinky feet smell.
15. It's the dogs. I swear.
16. You can indeed drop a beta fish down the kitchen drain (by mistake) and save him.
17. You can do this without the 5 year old knowing.
18. He seems to be okay, although he's not swimming around much.
19. Cleaning his bowl is a bitch, apparently.
20. My brother's coveralls for work have the word WENIS on them.
21. This word makes us giggle like 12 year old boys.
22. My brother looks like an astonaut in his coveralls. And he's a greenhorn in the company, so he gets to wear a green hardhat and green gloves.
23. It's a bad picture, but it makes us giggle anyway.
24. He doesn't have a good sense of humor at all times.
25. As a result, we learned that a kid's softball bat will indeed leave welts.
26. Certain unnamed individuals in this house leave gallon containers in the fridge when they have approximately 2.1 cm of liquid in them.
27. Other certain unnamed individuals THROW things into the pantry, so when other unnamed individuals (read: ME) open the door, shit falls out on my head and feet.
28. Other certain unnamed individuals leave glasses all over the house with approximately 2.1 cm of liquid in them.
29. 2.1 cm of liquid looks like a lot when a bouncy ball knocks over a glass going approximately 45mph.
30. A fiesty fly and a dumbass june bug (HELLO?! It is SEPTEMBER) can really keep dogs and people entertained (Video to follow)
So what can I learn at your house in a very small amount of time?
The intention was truly there to be silly today. To post something sassy about the Mormons who stopped me in the middle of mowing my front yard, to ask me if I wanted help, and then asked me why I thought being a Christian was "enough"? I could go super-sassy on that situation. I also intended to talk about the anthills the size of Oklahoma, Georgia, and Illinois I ran over with the mower. Have you ever ran over an anthill with a mower? Holy hell. Pretty sure there are ants in different zip codes now. Also? The fuckers bit me. Like I meant to annihilate their kingdom.
Instead, I am stuffed in the corner of my mother's couch, listening to the tick-tick of the clock in the kitchen. Watching my old lady dog dream in her sleep, snoring generously, a drop of snot about to fall off her nose onto the carpet. She moves more in her afternoon naps than she does all week long while awake. I can see the large tumor in her armpit rising and falling with her labored breathing.
I know the time is drawing near.
I can't bear it.
There are so many things I cannot bear right now.
Yet I do, every day.
I get through each day with a ton of laughs. Sincere laughs. I wear my brain out at night, job searching, writing, watching idiotic TV (Helllloooo, Jersey Shore), so that I can fold myself into bed with seconds between a final sigh and then sleep.
I have made my peace with a disasterous situation. I was pushed out of my marriage. I fought and fought, but I finally gave in. I finally just stopped fighting. To survive the hurt, I shut it all off. I moved on......finishing grad school, focusing on my girl, playing with my dogs, laughing with my mother, allowing others to flirt with me, seeking peace within my writing, my music, silence.....
And now, after all trust has been broken, after all the horrible hurtful things said have been imprinted within the deepest walls of my heart.....
....there's allegedly a chance.
A request for forgiveness.
A request to try to make things right.
I forgive, but I cannot forget. I can't scrub the imprints off of my heart. I can't block out the echoes of hurtful things in my mind, when I think of going back, of trying, of full forgiveness.
I cannot bear the hurt again.
I cannot bear the pain I will cause everyone by saying:
I cannot bear to go back.
It hurts just to type that.
How do you throw away 13 years of togetherness? How do you say awful things, how do you strike w/ your actions, and then wake up asking for another chance?
How do I bear this?
I feel as though I am sitting on the edge of something-my future, maybe?-and I'm teetering. Each word and action mean so much, yet, mean nothing.
Here I sit.
The clock continues to tick-tick.
My old lady dog has gone silent in her sleep. I have to touch her with my foot to be sure she is breathing.
I hold my hand to my chest.
Yes.
I am still breathing.
I'm thinking of you as I paint the walls of my bathroom. No correlation, yet as I concentrate on emptying my brain of all this anger, I find it being replaced by memories of you.
I have no idea where you are, if you're married, if you even think of the 19 year old girl who fell so hard for you...and then broke your heart (and her own). I know I think of her...yearn to be more like her again: carefree, spontaneous, free-falling. Myabe you represent those things to me, or brought them out in me, maybe both, maybe neither.
I remember a lot of laughter, your sink overflowing with dirty dishes, spilling out onto your 2 small counters. A fridge full of beer, bread, milk, & leftover mexican food. The terrible futon couch with a comforting blanket always within reach. Your dark bedroom-tangled sheets, clothes all over the floor. Your poetry stuffed in the top drawer of your nightstand.
Late nights drinking mingle in my mind with the sun rising on us, barely awake on the couch on your porch. Naked and exposed to one another, only breaths between us.
I hadn't thought of that until now.
Do you remember?
I took a path, maybe unintended, and it was gorgeous in spite of the pain along the way. And this entire time, all these years, I've never thought of the life, trust, love, contentment, and peace in that moment between us, when dawn arrived, warming our faces.
As my path takes a new turn, I yearn for all of that again.
I am good with words. I always have been, even when I wasn't aware of it. Most of the time I can describe how I feel, even when it seems impossible to do so. I had a Hello Kitty diary at age 7, and a journal for writing poems by age 8. Give me a pen or pencil, and I could put down on paper what was going on in my head or heart.
But these days, I am at a loss. I don't know where to begin. Or what to write. I'm full of emotions, words, feelings, questions, statements, aches.....
I'm taking a journey I never thought I would. And honestly? I'm scared. Not because I don't think I will be okay, but because I just don't know what is around the bend.
I make it through my days. I stay up late, avoiding sleep, but at the same time yearning for it. It is when I am finally lying beneath my sheets that I feel the rawness of my life the last 9 months or so. I ache. I am exhausted. I can't even cry anymore. I can't even pray most nights. There's a hum coursing through my body. My life is shattered in pieces, scattered carelessly on the floor. Tossed away.
So. The beginning?
I'm getting divorced.
I'm actually not sure if that is the beginning or the end. It just *is*.
I will write about it. I will stumble over my words, struggle with my emotions, and try to find some peace in my life. I will sound like I have it all together. I will sound like I'm falling apart. I will be happy, relieved, content. I will be frightened, angry, crushed. I will be temperamental, depressed, yet confident.
I will continue to be a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend. I will pick up these pieces scattered on the floor, and rebuild myself: stronger, happier, more confident, at peace. I will continue to hope, continue to pray, continue to wish for a fantastic life, a beautiful love, a kind, gentle, & like-minded partner, and more babies.
I will not give up.
