shadows.

the shadows are swirling a bit.  my mind has been consumed by them, lethargy and indifference rearing their ugly heads the past 24 hours.  it rained all day today, at least the sky seemed to say, it's ok, i get it.

i remember you pure and warm
in the belly of a midnight sun
you were playing on those dark clouds
but they didn't come 



you, you, you.  do you get why i had to trade our life in for my own?  i know all these widows who are like "well i would just think to myself what would so and so do and then i would take that into account" and i'm over here just thinking "mmm.... that doesn't sound like what i do"

you, you, you.  i remember it was shortly after it happened, jumper came on the radio and i almost lost control of the car.  all of my connecting points with you have gone out.  the only surviving remains of me are ones that were untouched by you.

being without you has numbed me to the joy of still being here.  being without you has broken me down.  being without you has marked me.  being without you here, the sharp realization of you, of us fading, fading, fading.  i miss getting cut on your edges.

and if it don't hurt you, then girl, it aint love.



sometimes i take stock of my life and think holy fuck, i'm not even thirty.  i mean leaving your credit card open at a bar is still somewhat acceptable at this stage and i'm over here on the other side of so many lessons.

i know so many people have experiences of loved ones who have passed being with them, glimpses of them in innocent moments.  i wish i did.  i wish i caught glimpses of my daughter and my mom and my husband.  in all honesty, i don't.  i have to fight to even feel connected to elly.  i don't know if anything i'm doing is honoring them, all i can do is fight to be myself.  she is so so different than who i thought, than who i was, than who i've glimpsed.



our children aren't really ours.  there is this continual letting go.  i had addy on the cruise ship last week and i was trying to talk her into wearing something and she goes "mom, can't i just wear what i feel comfortable in?" i was looking at her tonight and thinking about that statement.  she's not a mannequin, she's not a doll, she is this person living and breathing next to me.  i gotta let her be addy, she's not mine.

elly, you aren't mine either.  i'm not sure you ever were.  not a minute goes by that i don't wish you were though.  it seems cruel that something that is such an intimate part of me does not truly belong to me.  it is my largest sacrifice.

for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death. 
Oliver Sacks

we don't truly belong to anyone but ourselves.