Monday, March 10, 2014

In the Hours Left Over

I struggle to find time to live in the after.  It is in the after that I can truly feel.  Experiencing my heartache, crying my tears, laughing at the jokes that only I can laugh at short of teaching someone else a language that only exists in my on mind. The agonizingly exhaustive energy required for wrestling with the option to run away from it all, or make the daily choice to stay where I am without crawling into a bottle of pills in hopes of numbing the wanting away is who I have currently become.

After managing the daily routine of my chosen path - marriage, motherhood, teaching, and raising two young children up to be anything other than Assholes - I finally get to be my authentic self in the hours left over.

The hardest part of leaving paradise is making the daily choice to continue to leave it once you are already home.  Mentally extinguishing each blazing memory in order to live in the burned out remains can be horrifying.   Endurance is not the easiest of daily companions to accommodate.  But the only way out is through.

Magic will return.
These things cannot be planned, scheduled, or prepared for with a freshly cleaned home decorated for a personal celebration.  Expectation is a repellant for serendipity.  It is in living the day to day that fuels the magical experiences yet to be indulged in. Only through the waiting can the wanting subside.

Heartbreak is terribly inconvenient on dry land.  Lust has no room to vibrate in between loads of whites and perma-press.  Emptiness cannot comfortably coincide with packing healthy school lunches.  Ache blocks all motivation to accomplish tasks involving deliberately focused elbow grease, like washing the sheets that still hold your scent captive or scrubbing your footprints away from the kitchen tile on which we danced.  Need has no room to snuggle in a bed shared with a man who is always willing to love all of my hurt away but, for this moment at least, can't because he is not you.

Because this moment is all about me.  It is all about the me that seeks to play the wild card and win it all with no regret, but can't because there are no wildcards in a game of Old Maid with a preschooler for an opponent.  Games lose all their fun when you are focused on outmaneuvering and demolishing someone who calls you, "Mommy." 

This moment is about fully understanding that Marianne was right when saying how our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.  So it is here, in the hours left over, that I let my vulnerability stand front and center.  It is here where all judgment disappears and my imperfection is precisely perfect.  And it is here that I will always return so that I may someday, once again, be set free.

3 comments:

  1. pretty nice blog, following :)

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  2. I’m very excited to serve you…

    Frankly, I wouldn't be tooo worried about what the whorizontal world thot about me, dear; I'd be much more concerned about what Jesus shall say at our General Judgment. You may not like me now, yet, I’m not out to please you. Lemme wanna gonna tella youse Who (grrr - New Joisey accent):

    Greeting, earthling. Not sure if we're on the same page if you saw what I saw. Because I was an actual NDE on the outskirts of the Great Beyond at 15 yet wasn’t allowed in, lemme share with you what I actually know Seventh-Heaven’s Big-Bang’s gonna be like for us if ya believe/accept: meet this ultra-bombastic, ex-mortal-Upstairs for the most extra-blatant, catch-22-excitotoxxins, guhroovaliciousnessly delicious, pleasure-beyond-measure, Ultra-Reality-Firepower-Addiction in the Great Beyond for a BIG-ol, kick-ass, party-hardy, robust-N-risqué, eternal-real-McCoy-warp-drive you DO NOT wanna miss the sink-your-teeth-in-the-rrrock’nNsmmmokin’-hot-deal: PLEASE KEEP HANDS/FEET INSIDE THE WIDE UNTIL WE MADE A CIRCUMFERENCE OF the OUTSTANDING, NEVER-ENDING, THRILLIONTH-RED-MARKER-POSSIBILITIES!!! Puh-leeeze meet me Upstairs. Do that for us. Cya soon, girl…

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