Settle Me Down

29 days until we do it.  

The thing is I still don't feel like she is dead.  I want to feel her death.  I want it to be brutally honest, forthright, in my face.  I want to be wounded.  Really wounded.  I want to watch the blood flow warm and slow. 


So where are you Pain?  When are you going to show up?  I'm ready.  I'm waiting.  I'm actually getting annoyed with your ambivalence.  Come on! 

I welcome Apathy.  I embrace Bitterness.  The invites have been posted and a wonderful soiree has been prepared for us all........ And yet the tea grows cold as the clock ticks on.  You have stood me up and all I am left with is this quiet room. 

You didn't call.  You didn't message.  There was no warning that I was to be abandoned.  Did you all conspire together?  I should be Angry but I'm not; even he has fled the scene.

And so the bath is drawn, the marketing is done, books are read, meals prepared, nails are painted, toddlers are put to sleep, husbands are loved.....it all goes on and on....and I want to scream, "Turn it off! Make it stop!"  Shouldn't the world at large be in some state of mourning?  Shouldn't the planet be spinning slower on its axis?  And what about MY world, shouldn't it be stopping altogether?

I just can't seem to FEEL the reality of it all.  Grief hasn't shown up like I thought, suitcase in hand, ready to move into the guest room.  She comes in odd waves and pangs like she is sneaking up on me from behind.  I'll be changing a diaper or buttering the toast and there she is without warning.  She seizes me in a way that hasn't occurred before.  My chest tightens, breath knocked away, and I am left paralyzed and suffocating in her clutches.  It all lasts a few moments and the attack usually goes unnoticed.  She's cunning and she's quick and I actually welcome these assaults.  For a few seconds when I can't find a breath and my heart seems to have stopped..... I get it.  She is dead and I can FEEL the deadness.  It might not feel good but it feels real and that for me is a comfort.  Then as quick as it came on it dissipates into the air before me.  It reminds me of waking from a dream when the last image is fading before me into fuzzy, disjointed pixels. I try everything to hang on to the picture and place those hazy dots back together, but to no avail. They have scattered into the universe and are not to be returned.

Perhaps this surrealism is a symptom of me living so far away from my mom, 9362 miles to be exact.  But upon further investigation....I don't think so.  My sister is prey to the same phenomenon and she only lives 32 miles away.  Then there is my dad who is also a member of the "none of this feels real" club and he slurped his coffee across from her every morning. 

So I was prepared to fight and it was a forfeit.  I was prepared to clink glasses with misery and her gang but they were a no show.  I should be happy about this and yet it's oddly unsettling.

I am ready to be settled.