“Home”
Published on Aug 13 2010 | Filed under: Embraced by Darkness
Well, I’m home. Just got here a couple of hours ago. I left yesterday and I remain in awe at how time is and how we remember it. I left 3pm yesterday, a long time, but only a blink, the drive is just a blur and it feels like I’m just pulling away from our house. Eleven hundred miles and none at all. I hate the way we remember things. I hate so many things right now that I can barely breathe. I have a lot to be glad about, a lot to be thankful for. But yesterday was the worst day of my life. Too many people I will never see again. Too many tears that were so deep I had to pull over because I simply lost the ability to breathe. I wanted nothing more than to turn around after I left and go back to our house.
This is a memory I will always keep and it will always be held in the fist of the shocking, oppressive heat that has been clutching Oklahoma for the past week. When I think of driving away the last time, it will be entirely soaked in sweat. When I think of signing the papers for my house to go on the market, it will be with the sun blaring down, becoming an intruder that feels like it’s trying to kill me. When I kissed Joseph for the last time, it will be with the salty taste of sweat, covering the taste of our tears.
Five years of my life, my “home”, all gone in a heart beat. It’s funny how, as a writer, I am a realistic, insightful, absurdly creative person, yet I never imagined it would be like this. I had no idea, no way to prepare myself. I am used to being prepared. I am never blindsided. Never played the fool. Yet here I am. Feeling like a fool.
Sharon has my book (see, look at how easy I changed the subject and pity me at how quickly I go back to it) she wrote me an email two days ago saying how she can’t read my monster right before bed at night because she ends up having the craziest dreams and getting no rest at all. I’m actually smiling at that. I told her, “You wonder why I’m an insomniac I’ve got that stuff going through my head twenty-four hours a day!” Of course that’s not true.
The truth is my books are my only real distraction. Driving up I suddenly realized an important piece of dialogue that I want in my sequel. Funny how even through all of this there is always a piece of my brain working on one of my books all of the time. No matter what. Suddenly the sweat shop gals who are working so silently hard on my book, in a windowless corner of my brain, pipe up and say, “We’ve got something, check it out!”
What keeps me up at night is not my imagination but always my heart. Regret. Anger. Grief. This is what keeps me up at night. In that order. I am a writer. I feel too much. Too hard. Too fast. And, as my mother puts it, I am absurdly loyal. I simply am not emotionally capable of leaving someone behind. I’ve had to do it for five years in this long distance relationship, time and time again. And, yesterday, permanently. It just doesn’t work in my brain. I don’t understand how to go on having left someone behind me. I literally just do not know what to do. I am sick with grief. I am upset beyond words. There is an entire continent within me that lies in shock at the mere fathom of trying to move on having left without him. I always wanted to take him with me, with or without our relationship; or kids; or marriage; or any of that fucking bull shit. I just couldn’t leave someone I loved behind.
His choice. Yeah, I know. Say it again for me, it hasn’t sunk in yet, maybe it will this time. He wants you to leave him alone so he can move on and find misses-fucking-better-than-you. You know this. Yes, I know this. Say again. Yes, I know this, and I know I deserve better than not to move on right at this moment. But, ya know, that continent inside of me that doesn’t know what the fuck to do now, that is actually lying quivering on the floor in shock? So? How can you say so? That continent is the majority of my emotions. So? Fuck you. That’s not very nice, right now you’re actually having an argument with yourself, if he doesn’t want you, if he wants so badly for you to abandon him (the chick that anybody would want on their team) then why don’t you? Why don’t you just give him what he wants? I don’t want him to get hurt, he’s a sweetheart, he’s had it rough; he’s my best friend; he has the worst luck in the world and I don’t want him to be alone. He can always call you, God knows you’ll always pick up the phone and be there for him. It’s not the same, you remember. Yeah, I know what you said to him when you held his head against your heart, you said, “This is where I will always keep you.” Nothing is stopping you from that. But it’s where he belongs. Than, if that’s true, he’ll learn that the hard way. I don’t want him to have to, I understand the hard way now; it’s no way to live. Well, there isn’t a part of you, not even this one, that can blame you for that. But you know that that is not how it’s going to happen. Yeah, I know, he’ll find somebody. Sure he will, but you can still keep him there, the him that was then, the him that you once had, you can remember that Joseph even after he forgets. I can’t even handle the consideration of knowing that that is all I have left. I just can’t do that yet. You will with time. I know, I hate time. Everyone does.
Yeah, I got that inner dialogue typed all the way out didn’t I? Today, six hours from home (after a terrible night trying to sleep) I almost fell asleep at the wheel. I went to a gas station and bought what I could to get home. I drank a five hour energy, washed it down with a red bull, took three ibuprofen, washed them down with a red bull and then lit a cigarette. I was able to keep going, I was able to get home. Everything looks like it’s missing something. But I did get home. If I can do that, I can still get up tomorrow, at least. One step at a time, right?