SeeingRred
The Unburdening
Sitting on my throne, I look up at the clock. 1:45 am, fifteen minutes before my cut off for bedtime and I am actually sleep-ready. How nice. Strange. It is then that it registers that my mind is quiet. No noise. No fluster. No pressure. Still activity, but there is clarity and calm in the former space of hysteria.
Two months of heightened distress, and now suddenly gone? I ask myself why. What is different?
Woke up this morning, K sprawled beside me. I squint from the sun peeking in from the slits of the blinds and M reminds me of the time. My head, pounded by the dream I remember and the three meagre hours of sleep, but there is ease because he is here. And, we speak.
He brings Z to me, still limp in his normal childish languor. I hold his little body near and trace the fine lines of loveliness, as I hear muted voices among the happy kitchen clangor. Meals in minutes, morning routines revved up, so two can do 3kids-3games-3locations in less than 3 hours. Usually, it is my worry. But, today, we divide and conquer.
Home again and the rain tells us to stay. No time-fillers and no commitments. Relaxing, lazy afternoon. Idle ambition sorts us, folds us, measures and mounts. We cross off untended items, separately working together.
Everything done, we cook. We hesitate and shuffle about with indecision and unfamiliarity. Disjointed processes, different paces, working together in our own spaces. A titillating docudrama moving us from anxiety to anticipation, alarm to achievement. And, finally, we sit. We are so long without nourishment and yet afraid to eat. One bite, then two… Dig in! Relieved and thankful; it is delicious.
The evening passes without episode. Ice cream. Movie. Sleep. All done. On my throne, transfixed by the simplicity.
The Soul-Searching
I am in a state of unravel. That is what has been happening since July 2, 2018. I think it is because a single conversation on a lunch date showed me that you Don’t/Won’t/Can’t give me what my heart desires … what I dream of and have always craved. And, that has left me questioning everything that fuelled me and gave me hope.
I thought if I dug in deep, I could figure it out for both of us. I was willing to do the work. I had truly believed that if we tackled everything, laying it bare and making the necessary changes, we could build us (and our lives) back up … that we could actually win this thing TOGETHER. It made sense and seemed to be working. Amid times of flux, it felt like we had made great strides and reached a level of trust and comfort. And, in those rare moments when everything came together, it was magical.
Then a curt reply and the clink of an empty glass brought me back to our reality. Harping on old grudges and simmering hate, I knew consciously or subconsciously you wouldn’t let us win. Since then, it has left me wanting and disappointed and now even angry. Because even though we have experienced joy and have mounting evidence of its recurrence, we, being who we are, cannot secure and maintain it. The work seems to have been in vain. I have not been able to recover. And, yes, I am unravelling.
The Denouement
I still want friendship and romance and love and success. I cannot help it.
But more than that, I want to feel comfort and confidence and inner peace, all of which have been absent in the past two months. Fearing it was gone forever, I fell into slow despair. Then, just like that, it was back. No great feat or grand gestures.
In the past 24 hours, inner peace comes from the knowledge that WE are good. It is the coming to terms with one’s reality and knowing that, despite disagreement and discord, we are working steadily to do what needs to get done, and helping each other get through the day. It is feeling visible and being heard. This is my security. THIS is what I need. Emotionally, you are threadbare and once in a happenstance is all you can afford.
It is with great sadness, I throw romantic notions out the window. They make me weak. I turn to all the things I have built into my life, my weekly goals, My Life Journal. They make me stronger, better, fuller, more free. Stripped, I am back to the basics.
Note: … must stop. It’s 4:18am and I am tired. Must make use of the fact that I feel I can sleep. The words will be patient and still until I return. I do not know when this will happen again or even for how long. So, I must sleep.
All I need is for you to notice when I am disappearing into my darkness, merely an acknowledgement, just a nudge.
When you see me glaringly greasy in the clothes of yesterday, curled away into the farthest corner of our king bed, blanked eyes with swollen cases, and my elbows together pressing hard to contain all that is in my head, just do what you did.
Come by.
Ask, “What’s going on?” Ask a few times when I don’t answer.
Reach out and touch. Eventually fear and pride will slip off my stubborn nose and soften my back.
Take over and take care of our kids.
These are the basics. Will you do this?? It is all that I really need.
August 26, 2018
