November 11, 2018
First super cold day of the imminent winter at 29 degrees. I’ve been feeling creative bursts every day on and off, however never seem to get myself to the page. Then it flows out of other creative projects like updating house hardware, nest cleaning and redesign and leaf blowing patterns. I’m reaching here.
I am feeling lonesome on and off as well. I wonder if the significant people in my life, both friend and adversary, think of me as I do them. I think of so many of the people I adore past and present on a daily basis. At times I send them notes. Other times I visit them, or I express a desire to visit them or I invite them to visit me. The latter seems never to occur. Not even by my own immediate family. What an estranged life I am living. My tribe has left me as I remain, solitary, in a large, beautiful colonial in a moderately distant valley. I am so very grateful for the beautiful home I have and the immortal husband who supports my trauma-induced daily habits, pointedly, my unemployed, consumer-effusive life. And although I can’t think of myself as not being wasteful, I tell myself it does not define me. Overdrawn but temporary. I’m seeking a new tribe. The meantime is a grating lonesomeness.
The daily moments in which I reflect on my separation from Richard, always reveal a sadness in the realization that our union was neither meant to be romantic nor forever. We are not kindred spirits, we are comate’s of convenience living out both ends of the definition, having become mates and subsequently fallen into a coma, tumbling out in hairy tufts like dry tumbleweeds rolling directionless in hot winds. We leave this journey as we entered, each as our own protagonists in both our individual and shared drama, played out in perfect time. It has brought us to our personal awakenings that shakes us at our cores, revealing our naked selves like a Talking Heads tune questioning; “how did I get here?” Shocking how every line of those lyrics personify our joint venture. We both were aware in our subconscious and occasionally conscious minds that the big bang which smashed our worlds together was a once in lifetime event. Time could not hold up and things could never be the same as they ever were for either of us. We were both content allowing the days to go by, same as the next and the next and the next. For a decade. This is when we became the antagonists in our story. When life was chaos with growing kids and parental dementia. Love was masked by needs, urges, relief. Our bare bodies an elixir to the incomprehensible. But now the winds have changed, the kids have left, dementia won, the cause has been erased by time and I cannot remain content simply letting the days go by under the rocks and stones we’ve stacked between us, silent water holding us down. With the swirling clatter of external forces waned, I have felt water underground, flowing, spraying my toes, the only living element touching me. “What is this beautiful house? Where does this highway go? Am I right? Am I wrong? My God! What have I done?” I saved myself and him. He did the same. We are saved. We survived. We are each other’s heroes and our own. The war is over. The cries of battle echo in our heads. The triggers are too prevalent. He is gun shy. I am receding. Searching for a new home, for the one I left two decades ago has dissipated into the vastness of the memory tunnel. The further I move along life’s automated sidewalk, the farther those experiences ebb away. I am moving both forward and in retrograde. The memories are my story, and as I join my spirit into the life force that flows beneath my core, I feel the force of movement urging me through necessary losses towards destinies unknown. I am okay with this. I am grateful. I float.
As unsettling as it feels in moments of hyper-awareness, when perceived reality brings on anxiety, I give myself permission to rage, grieve, hold space and rejoice in what was and what may come. The miracle of unfolding unto potentiality is hope. “Holding Opportunity Perceived as Evolution”. I take full credit for this acronymic conceptualization.
So happy to be writing again.
© 2018 all rights reserved
Your writing never fails to impress me and your raw honesty, well, would that more people could look inward, homeward, and see the truth of our existence.I myself have become accustomed to the solitude of this phase of my life and am quite enjoying this time to reflect, to create and to just be.Peace and love to you my friend….and keep writing!
XOXO Linda
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