I Feel All My Love Coming Back to Me

I woke up this morning with an ache in the right side of my jaw. Not a sore muscle, but right in the joint when I chew. I must either have clenched my jaw all night in my sleep or I'm getting a nasty ear infection. I guess we'll see in the morning.

The house is empty. It's both wonderful and sad. It's very clean. I like that entirely more than is normal. I miss my child. But he managed to fail to do the one thing I asked of him to help me. If I ask, it's because I really need it. I never ask. It's so hard for me. Perhaps the last five years living the way we have eclipsed that for him. I've just done it all. And it shows. On my heart and my hands and in the way my mind is so cynical.

He skipped school today. The first day after the break. After accidentally, while closing my bedroom curtains yesterday afternoon, catching him with his girlfriend when she picked him up. It was just a hug. A hug that went on and on. I'd have stopped looking were it more. Just a tender moment from a man that I made. I haven't seen him since about 3:00, when he slipped down to the basement and out of the house. Letting him go in small steps. I'm mostly ready. So is he.

And this is the duality I'm in today. I hung art on the walls. Photos and posters and paintings. Mine and those of others. For the first time. It's only the second time I've seen them on the wall in person. The first was a wolf and my favorite color and my name. Mine. This should have come first, but I never do things in the right order.

A gentleman approached me with a statement today that found me unprepared. I'm not ready. I'm not ready for anything. He's wonderful and all I can think is "Angels and Fuselage" because I'm scared shitless. And I told him so. I do that now. Unabashed, full-frontal emotional honesty. The alternative is my past and that is over. It's too much to leave in tidepools. We have to jump all the way into the ocean, into the fire. The almost white hot.

I had a pretty vivid flashback today. Of giving my father's eulogy. Who knew him better? Who loved him better. I wore this 3/4 sleeve button-down blouse with black and gray vertical stripes on white. I barely made it through. Sobbed and stuttered and choked through it all. But I finished saying what I needed to say. I always will and he's part of that. I guess any time I catch a feeling, he's there some way or another. This time a sharp, intense knowledge and the waiting for it.

I give a hell of a eulogy. I hate that I know that about myself. Another time, I wore a yellow dress. His favorite. His favorite color and his favorite in the way that I wore it with my bleached pixie cut and my tan so deep it's hard to believe now. He was there in the lemony glow over my left shoulder. No one understood. I had been completely out of my mind. These days it feels less crazy to me.

I've managed it this evening. And it wasn't bad. I'm getting better at being alone. And I need to do that. And I will. I am lonely and I am alone. And that's okay. I have people I can reach out to if it gets too hard. And it's not tonight. I can feel all the love coming back to me from all over. My tribe. New tribe. Funny how those things happen when you least expect it. And even when you see them, you maybe don't know how things will move until they do. I'm grateful for that one new friend. Really just a friend and we both see that. How rare it is that two people we are can do that.

I've had a few glasses of wine, so I'm going to go to bed. Tomorrow will be lighter. I think.

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