Breaking the Silence

I could tell you where I've been, but I don't know. I don't even know where I am. I'm on the couch, but I'm not. Everywhere I've been, I haven't. (Been.) I'm in hot pursuit of myself.

Someone has stolen my words. It seems possible that I'm the someone: that I've swallowed my own words, that they've coated my belly with dust. I feel a little sick.

Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday. I'd forgotten, but Jim reminded me. I don't feel like we've talked much since her funeral. We've argued some. We've kept busy.

I'm forcing myself, just now, to stay still while awake, and if I'm honest, so much of what I've done, lately, has been part of a great effort to ward off depression. At least three times in the last couple weeks, I've done each of the things I do when I'm trying to avoid the pit. Some of them more.

I'm not in the pit. Still, I feel the heat rising from its yawning mouth. I look through the heat, and like gasoline fumes it distorts everything. You know what I mean. You've stood, haven't you?, at the pump in your flip-flops, the sun beating down, the go-go juice evaporating even as it pours into your tank. Maybe you haven't. I'm an expert in such matters. My tank is bottomless, the hot, black road the best lover I've ever had.

The sadness: it's not about my mother-in-law. It is, however, about change and the passage of time. My niece Brandi had a baby on Wednesday. She's perfect. I love her, already. But where has the time gone? Because it seems like just yesterday that Andrea, Brandi, Cade, and I were living together: that the kids were twelve and four, that I was reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to them. But it wasn't yesterday. It was ten years ago. Cade will start high school in the fall. I don't know if I'm ready.

Clementine's old enough, now, for kindergarten, and I don't know if I'm ready. It's time to submit a notice of intent, and I don't know if I'm ready. Baby Chip isn't a baby, anymore; I'm prone to bursting into tears about it.

I can't say for sure that I've loved anyone well enough, ever; yet, I'm so tired from the trying.

Cade and Baby Haven

No one wants his or her own sadness, let alone someone else's. You don't want mine. I know this, so I stop writing. I don't want your sadness, either, but I'll take it. I'll do my best to drown it in the lake. I'll carry it with me in the minivan, burning up the road, the brakes, tanks full of gas; driving toward I-don't-know-what; driving away from so much more. Or not. (It doesn't work, most times.)

In case you're like me and don't know what to do with sadness, I'll take it. Send me an e-mail. Talk to me.