Tether. February melt.

I have got to call this a part one.

because it is just too broad, and while I am not exactly known for complete packages of ponderings, I know this one will have many ripples for me.

So. The last week or so sucked. And while there were specific causes and effects and all that stuff, one of the things that came up for me was how temporary everything is. all of it. life too, but all of it. people, feelings, snowstorms, seasons. everything. It all just keeps happening, and going.

and all the ways in which I have felt temporary for a long time. I certainly thought marriage was forever but no. other ways too though. I watch my kids and am achingly aware all the time of how temporary it all is. Every hug, every laugh, every yell and eye roll. Every secret they keep. All of it. The things I will not know about, maybe ever. The dinners I make. The laundry. the laundry. It is too much with me, this feeling of soon-to-lose. Maybe soon-to-change is better. Is it grief that I’m feeling, before its time? Real grief is a sledgehammer, so i do hope i’m not borrowing that. What a mistake that would be.

At the end of my marriage I was definitely vacant. It started very early on, I think, when I realized how far down a priority list I was, but I was in it, I was willing, I could wait, I had faith, so much of it. So I was in it, lying in the muck but so deeply attached. It was going to change, it would. I could wait.

And then something shifted. I don’t know what it was, but I needed a break or I was going to die. I was too far into the muck I think and it was too hard to breathe. To this day, I’m not sure I was in charge at that time. I have no real memory of hitting bottom, or making such a conscious choice. But I did.

Back to the present: I feel like the awareness of it all hurts me right now. Like, I am missing what I am staring at, while trying to memorize every moment at the same time. There is a sweep of melancholy in me that is staying. What do I do of this? about this?

I don’t have the faith anymore. Its gone along with the marriage and the vacancy. Long gone, really. I’m out of the fucking mud. But how do you approach living without the tether? There needs to be something which ties me to the ground so that I don’t float off next time I round a corner. What do I tie down to?

Its an ache. *

love love,

me.

**No amount of cinnamon bears fills that. or tater tots. or even sex. i tell you from experience.