Everydaystranger

Each day is a struggle. Each and every day. I find myself a mix of emotions and – very often – conflicting requirements. I’ll think I’ll have put my finger on something only to find that my hand has slipped, my fingerprint smudged, my placement incorrect.

There is little about my time that is making sense right now. I am drifting, the only anchor I have my Lemonheads and my faithful companion, anger. I always have this sense of anger just below my surface. I shouted at my daughter this morning – they were fractious, arguing over their two favorite toys. She is not one to let things go (this smells of familiarity to me) and would not let her brother forget her rage at not having the toy of her choice. Her screaming was relentless and no matter how many times I re-directed her to another toy or told her that he has them both, she has to share, she wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop pursuing her brother to attempt to physically wrench a toy from him. I turned to her and shouted. She cried big, huge, shocked sobs at this. I cried, too.

And all of my thoughts are covered with waves of the non sequitur. How can I have a life without Alastair, the man who wired all the lights in the house, the lights which our son takes delight in on a daily basis? Such a stupid thought, but an example of those I have on a regular basis. Wired lights…big fucking deal. And yet it’s one of many things that punch me in the heart, along with bigger things: How can we stay together? How can I get past some things? Change is in the air but is it too late for breathing?

Some big things have happened this week, things that hurt my heart just when I thought my heart had already punched its time sheet out and gone home for the night. Turns out my heart was just on a coffee break. And I don’t know how to proceed sometimes. I want to apologize, I want to be apologized to, I want to rage, I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to be held, I want to escape, I want to stay, I want to hurt, I want to heal, I want…I want all of that, sometimes within seconds of each other.

I continue to lose weight. I am now, I am told, “a bag of bones”. I am not interested in food, but when I am my body goes for specific things – walnuts. Salmon. Spinach. Eggs, fucking lots of eggs. I focus on trying to eat a bagel every day since going to my Couch Man a week ago and having a bagel on the way there, the best fucking bagel in the history of bageldom, which was the first meal I’d had in days. I often succeed in eating my stupid bagel. And I watch my body in the mirror and not know who it is I see and I watch my heart and not know what it is I feel and I watch my life and not know what it is that’s going to happen, only that everything hurts but everything can’t hurt forever because like anger that pours out of you, there’s a bottom to it somewhere, if only you just wait it out to see.

You’re probably going to get sick of these posts, but the problem is I have fucking shedloads of confusion, anger, and hurt and absolutely no where to put it…

I have the following, a poem that a good friend sent me.

To Our Caring Friends:

Don’t tell me that you understand,
Don’t tell me that you know,
Don’t tell me how I will survive,
How I will surely grow.
Don’t tell me this is just a test,
That I am truly blessed,
That I am chosen for this task,
Apart from all the rest.
Don’t come at me with answers
That can only come from me,
Don’t tell me that my grief will pass
That I will soon be free.
Don’t stand in pious judgement
Of the bonds I must untie,
Don’t tell me how to suffer,
And don’t tell me how to cry.
My life is filled with selfishness,
My pain is all I see,
But I need you, I need your love,
Unconditionally.
Accept me in my ups and downs,
I need someone to share,
Just hold my hand and let me cry,
And say, “My friend, I care.”

-Anonymous

-S.