It’s been a few days since I posted. Not that I haven’t written tons and tons, but thank God I have demonstrated some degree of self control and not publicized my sad, grieving, horrifying thoughts.
A word of advice, when you lose your love, do not read poetry like this:
The Summer We Almost Split
by Marge Piercy
If one night in July one phone call
had never happened, we would now be living
in different houses, the summer I
patented the M. Piercy Total Weight Loss
Through Total Relationship Loss Diet.
It happens to other women, not to me,
the small lies that rot in the bottom
of the basket, the small omissions that rust
through, the slow weight of withdrawal like a change
in the climate that turns farmland to desert.
It happens to other women, not to me,
the solid kitchen plank that breaks suddenly
under your feet and you are falling,
hurtling headfirst in the dark
to wake with a broken hip.
It happens to other women, not to me,
the empty bed, sheets crumpled like a discarded
cigarette pack, the empty man whose love
has gone all at once, empty as
a refrigerator standing in a field.
Well, we came back, didn’t we, crawling
and clawing. We came to this place
under a hard clear light and this new
understanding I turn and turn in my hand
like a crystal prism.
For years you have come and gone, loving
and pulling out, taking and running, and now
you claim to have moved in and say you fear
I will leave if I read the fine print
of the quibbling years hidden by your brows.
You think love is a problem you will solve,
a mortgage you will finally pay off. It is you
I have been loving so long and I know where you
have been and how. While you’ve driven armored
in fantasies, I’ve walked and slept naked at your side.
I love the way Piercy writes poetry. Okay, so the whole coming back thing doesn’t apply, but I do have a new understanding that I turn and turn in my hand. And I do feel naked next to his armor, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I tell myself, “Self, repeat after me. You are not losing EVERYTHING. There are huge changes happening, but not EVERYTHING changes. Stop using the word ‘EVERYTHING’! Or the word ‘NOTHING’, as in ‘I have NOTHING.’ Or ‘NO ONE’, as in ‘I have NO ONE.’ Just stop it!”
Sometimes you will see me saying things like that out loud. Just pass by as if you did not notice. I will be fine. Or as H and others tell me, “You’ll be okay.”
Damn it! I don’t want to be okay! I want to be Fabulous! Super Duper! Extraordinary! Sensational!
“Okay” means I merely survived this! I don’t want to be a survivor! That’s what I was in my last marriage to C. It was abusive, suffice to say. And I was in complete victim mode. Worse than the physical stuff is what he did to my mind.
I survived that. I ended up okay. But I want more than okay. I want to flourish!
But most of all, I want to inspire people, with my wonderful taste in shoes! Check out these happy feet!
Yes, that was an abrupt transition. But people! I just want to make you smile! That would make me feel so much better!
Smile! Laugh! Please do it for me!
p.s. For an idea of what should happen in a relationship if it seems like two people are drifting apart, read Sue’s post. She is way smarter than me…
Mary…you crack me up. Love the footware.
YOU are Fabulous, Super Duper, Extraordinary, and Sensational!!!
Hugs to you, you fabulous lady, you! Your happy, funky feet do make me smile. And I am partial to reddish colored shoes (I miss my old combat boots which were this same fabulous color of burgundy…they died of overuse 7 years ago, but I still miss them!)
I love those boots! They are so awesome!
Mary…I just checked this out…I’m online again, for now!
You are as AWSOME as your boots! Great to spend the day with you!
You guys sure now how to warm a girl’s heart. Thanks!
Yes! Those boots did make me smile. And the poem was great.