Yesterday - which I forgot to write on..... - was a rediscovery of the joys of auntiehood. I blew into the cabin, intent on changing out my laundry and then down to the shop to work out. The boys asked me what I was doing and decided they needed to join me in the shop and exercise with me. I spent over an hour chasing 4 year olds and them chasing me, laughing hysterically as we run up and down hills, did laps around the perimeter of the shop, tried hula hooping, and when Randy joined us, we tried to teach them how to jump rope. Wesley dictated how I needed to draw hopscotch from circles and randomly selected numbers - two #1 circles, a ten, a nine.
I needed out of the house and to wander and wander I did. After a session with my therapist, I ran into Melinda on her way in to the same therapist. We got in some intense hugs and appreciation with promises to do a sleep over in my trailer on Saturday. I'm ridiculously pleased with this plan, she'll be my first guest. I dropped by Jen and Stephan's with 3 bowls of Pho and we chatted about their recent car accident and the intense damage Jen's sustained to her eye. When she was exhausted and looking longingly at the bottle of painkillers with her good eye, I left. On their doorstep I got a call from Jill and we talked the whole time I drove, me getting lost a couple of times, before I found the house I lived in for 6 months. I hung up and went in to talk about love and life some more with Kate. What a lovely evening of all of my closest friends.
I ended it with going to a club and seeing some DJs, with only two danceable tracks and scattered conversation shouted over the music. It's a world of old and new, the same place, some of the same DJs, a handful of familiar faces and conversations. I downed one too many ciders and booked after a couple of hours to drive home at the speed limit all the way to Oregon City shrouded in thick fog.
The sun is out right now, a rare and lovely event these days. I had half hoped the sun had been shining in my absence and I'd be able to pull the trailer out of the mud. Not even close. The to-do list is daunting, a social life around the corner in just a couple of hours I'm headed to Portland again. This time it's a happy hour at Molokos with Jill and some friends. Should be interesting. My imagination runs with all permutations of potential scenarios when it's briefly unfettered from work. I make the bed and day dream. I fold clothes and hurt for the love lost so recently. It's on my mind in that pervasive way that looks for any holes in my concentration to crash emotional tidal-wave like in the depths of my chest. How can a space so tight with organs feel both cavernous and like I don't have enough room to breathe all at the same time?
If you asked me what the perfect scenario was, what qualities I want in my life, it would be with him. But the parts that don't work and what is missing outweighs the rest by an extra portion again. My therapist says I can't get past this until I feel it totally. How do I do that? How do I feel it totally? How do I create the space and time to emote this into no longer haunting me? It sounds like I have to create the exorcism. My past experiences with this kind of fresh loss and longing for a love that can't be tells me that it will happen. One day I'll wake up and it will all be different. Or it will be in a waking moment when the forgiveness will happen. When I'll wish him nothing but good, and my heart will be again totally my own with it's halls no longer smelling like he just walked past, like he's just around the corner.
And then I'll start to forget. The smell of his skin, how it feels to be in his arms, the way his eyes crinkle when he's smiling. The price of the grace to move on. This all makes me want to protect my heart better. Take it all slower. Make this now aching place in my chest learn again to trust, that it's possible to love, that it's again worth it to risk it.