October

You can feel the sharpness when it cuts your lungs.

The minutes before you are completely awake are the hardest to bear.

Glass is smashing against side walks while you walk home. 

I'm wondering if it's a Heineken or a Budlight. 

He whispers 'I love you' & you pretend to be asleep.

The zip code hasn't changed. 

Goodness

We spend our lives searching for something that we only catch glimpses of in passing. Something that we want to believe is real so badly we end up convincing ourselves of its existence. It is this belief that we hold on to. We tell ourselves it can be found at the end of cold October nights; promise that it is lost within mundane activities, that we will feel it's true power while changing sheets and washing pots. We think it's seen in one another from across crowded rooms. It's the goodness that keeps us going.

Until it doesn't. Until you realize that this goodness you've sought for has never existed. Ever. Everything caves in and crumbles then. We learn the foundation to which we stood was never there.  Everyone is a liar. Moments are nothing more than 60 seconds of time that pass between inhaling. We learn people are inherently evil. 

We ourselves, the preservers of the goodness we seek - liars too. Caught lying to ourselves. We're all cowards. All willing to do anything to conceal who we really are.  

You come out of your trance with a new perspective. A straight path ahead of you and new belief that the only person you can trust is yourself. Deep down you know, even then you are walking a very fine line.

When She Was Young

When they look back on my life, they will say this was a defining period. A time that changed who I was. Not in the twenty-something-quit-your-job-and-hitch-hike-out-west kind of way.  There was nothing angelic about the 29 months in which I did not move an inch. 

In October, it was all pumpkin margaritas with candy corn in the bottom of sugar rimmed glasses. Big flowery scarfs and black button downs kept us warm outside run down bars and empty city streets. We were thin then, but no one was asking why our thighs didn't touch. It was the beginning of the coldest winter we'd ever see and the first that I slept with a fan.

No one will say I changed for the worse. Lowered eyes and soft voices will give way to the fact that during this period I didn't crumble. I shriveled.

Before we could put away our flip flops it was snowing. And snowing and snowing. Everything was frozen before Halloween. Heath Ledger Halloween masks gave us anxiety attacks in the driveway and the love seat on the porch became a bedroom. Blankets left in the foyer, shoes lined the hallway upstairs. We didn't complain, we didn't lock our doors because we weren't scared. 

They will never mention you, not now. Your name will never pass through their lips to lay blame or award any credit. But it was you. You crushed me so hard that I never fully recovered. Bones have healed the same way bruises lightened. But the brightness, that honest belief I held in the purity of goodness - this was when I lost it. 

This was what happened after the leaves died. When it dropped too cold to go outside. This was when the emptiness that swallowed me began to take over. And I let it. I welcomed it. 

First Painting Project

I realize how much time has passed while I'm sitting on the floor in the kitchen, surrounded by paint cans and dirty brushes, more paint on my legs then the wall. I send you a picture of the mess and ask if your day is messy to. I laugh out loud, realizing I still share every thought that enters my head.

It was 2:25 in the morning, the first time you picked up a paint brush for me. I starred up at you through tired, half blurry eyes. The belt of robe trailed behind me but I held the back of your leg, like I was the stable part of this trapeze act.  You stood on a step stool rested over the toilet, half of your body leaning on rickety wire shelving- the perfect Thursday night.

 

We're young and in love, even if we're a little old now. That's my favorite part though. I remember that night every time I come with a can of paint or surprise you with a new bedroom wall color. My favorite as of late has been that green though. The original. 

I smile to myself while I type that very thought to you. 

A few minutes later, you tell me to get back to painting because you want to see a Summer Rain kitchen ready for fall when you get home.

Middle of the night green, circa winter 2012

Over the Rails

The grass isn't always greener on the other side. 

You get there and there's mildew, 

you get there and the grass is dry like hay.

You get there and everything is dead.

Election Night

I had felt this way for some time, but nothing about it registered until we were waiting for our table at my favorite restaurant in the city and one that I suspected you probably (I learned later, definitely) hated. It was small and filled with democrats and grad students clinking glasses, chanting 4 more years louder with each round. Your hand would tighten on my knee each time someone would knock into me or jab you with an elbow. With every smile, I felt my lips loosening your clenched jaw.

As far as I was concerned, we could have been the only two people at that bar. We stole kisses from one another like we were alone on my couch. And I felt every word you said, every story you shared pulled me further to you. I sunk into your soft voice and closed my eyes, burying my head against your shoulder. To this day, I can still feel your happiness as we sat looking through pictures. 

I tell people I don't cry. I am a lot of things: tough, independent, driven. I'm stubborn, determined even known to be cold at times, but emotional? I'd say no. Most people would tell you confidently that I could hold my own in a crowd, on a stage - under the heat of distress my convictions have carried me. But you, you saw what others haven't.

It was my tears in the middle of the night that jolted you awake and back to the reality you tried to push us from. You found my sadness among the insecurities that leave me awake. You searched my darkness and promised to soothe the anxieties I successfully kept hidden for 25 years. You pulled each one out into the light and set free. 

I have since cried in front of complete strangers. Falling apart in the arms of people I've never met, hoping that I will look up and see you reaching down to tell me I'm beautiful.  

I lay in the bed you built blocks for to stop from moving as I toss and turn. In the depth of my subconscious I still believe I will feel you when I reach behind me. I often look for you in the darkest time of night, when the silence is so heavy I can feel it against my chest. I am brought back to your bedroom, where the weeping willows once swayed along side us while it rained. You are lonesome for me too, I feel it. 

To see your darkness now scares me. It pulls me apart from the inside and seeps out, in a way no emotion has ever escaped me. I still believe in the goodness I felt when our hands found each other between bar stools and locked knees. Even now, as the wolves you threw me back to close in, I hold steady. The warmth of your heart still resonates within me and I am confident that its you who will save me. 

It was a Tuesday night in November when I realized that it was love that was I feeling- that I had been in love with you since the very beginning.