 Speed the Time |
|
That day that I fell when walking the dogs. And I landed on my side so hard that my shoulder and elbow and hand were ripped open and bleeding out bits of sidewalk and my right temple was throbbing from the impact and I couldn't breathe. I rolled over and looked up. I felt my dog's noses and breath on my face. I saw the blue sky and the leaves of a tall tree. They were spinning in slow motion. I remember just looking at the sky, wondering when I would take my next breath. I told myself that the harder I tried, the longer it would be. And my breath came back slowly and I gulped in the air. And I was lying in bed last night at 3 a.m., thinking about what that moment felt like. That moment when I couldn't see or really hear or feel anything but nothing. It was like time was suspended and all I could do was blink and wait for the breath to come back, to feel like I was still alive.
But what is not. Macbeth I:3 I think that the last few months have been something like that moment, only extended into seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks. I was stunned by the shock of it all and there was a time when it was like I stopped breathing. Like time stopped and ceased to have meaning. When people's concerned phone calls and letters and faces and my job and my animals and driving my car and eating and drinking and living and the anger and the betrayal and the hurt and the love and the loss just spun around me slowly like I wasn't a part of any of it. Like I had gone some place far and deep into myself, so deep that I didn't know that I could or would find my way out. When I thought I just might stop. That it all might stop. But I started breathing again. I'm breathing now. Tonight, there will be a pirate movie. And I'm gulping it in. Like I'm gulping in life. And last night, I watched the end of Moonlight and Valentino, of all goddamn movies, and I wept. I wept into my pillow. A character says something like, "I loved him, and he knew I loved him, and that's all that really matters." And then she says to the sky something like, "With all of my heart and with everything that I am ... goodbye." An amazing email arrived from a reader in Argentina. She closed with the words, "And just focus on what makes you vibrate!" And I smiled, because I knew just what she meant. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying so hard. But lately I can feel the stifled grief in me fighting to come out, and the main reason I'm getting off the medication is to let it. To let it spiral out of me once and for all.
Happy Valentine's Day Bunny I hope you have a wonderful day. So many wonderful things have happened since this time last year. I never thought that I could be more deeply in love with you than I was a year ago, but I find myself loving you more and more with each passing day. Thank you for all that you do for me and giving me a reason to smile each day. I love you. Love, S. Twelve days later, he left. People have complimented me regularly on how well they think that I have bounced back. But the truth is that sometimes I feel like I haven't done anything remotely resembling bouncing back. That I am nowhere near okay. He broke my heart. And as many good times as I've had since February, and no matter the joy I've been able to experience in the times with friends and family and their tireless support and the movies and the books and the music and the days at the lake or the pool or in New York or planning trips to Florida or Martha's Vineyard or Austin and the reunion and all of the laughs I've had with my silliest of pets and the amazing outpouring of love from my readers, my heart is still broken. There's just no pretending about that no matter how hard I think I've tried to pretend. And when I think about how quickly it all happened and how hurt I was to find out about his finding someone new, and I wonder what I did to drive him away, and it still seizes my chest, a visceral, physical tightening. Sometimes I wonder if I can bear it. But I guess I am bearing it, because I guess I have no choice. I often think to myself that I walked away with a clear conscience and the best two fucking cats who ever lived. And I believe that. And I wonder what he walked away with. Does he feel guilty? Does he feel loss? Or has he, as always, filled up his emptiness with someone brand new and put all the blame on the one he left behind? There is a void, and there are times at night in the darkness when I am so lonely that I could howl. I think back to this time last summer and remember talking about getting engaged. And I remember lying on the bed in the study while he sat at the computer and listening to him tell me that he had told his parents and his sister and Barbara that he knew that he wanted to marry me and that he planned to propose soon. And how my eyes filled with tears and I just lay on my side as the afternoon sun streamed through the curtains, watching him and smiling. And how shortly thereafter he went to my parents and asked for their blessing and for the ring. It was such a special and exciting and romantic time. I think back to this day and this time two years ago and the dizziness of falling in love. And how that never really went away the whole time we were together. Until the day when it suddenly did. Covered with scars I did nothing to earn Maybe there's somewhere a lesson to learn But that wouldn't change the fact That wouldn't speed the time Once the foundation's cracked And I'm still hurting I have tried to speed the time. I've tried medication. I've tried therapy. I've tried church. I've tried hooking up with an old friend. I've gotten very, very, very drunk. You can't speed the time, though. It's chronos and kairos and it all swirls together but I guess it's all just day by day by day. There have been days this spring and summer that have been glorious and great. But today is a day that is sad. And a day when it seems that nothing is but what is not.
© Copyright 2003 elb |
|
