I skipped a day. Not intentionally, well sort of intentionally. I woke and went. “Nope I don’t want to get up. ” Then laid there and thought of my dad, my sore knees and my failed marriage. Again. I repeat, again.
I may be a moderate repetitive thinker now but that means the moderate that is left is the moderate that is both my favorite and least favorite to repeat think. To scratch at. To find the answer to. My failed marriage needs an answer. And just like anything else I think at, it won’t get one because it’s not a simple math problem. It’s not even a complicated math problem. It’s not even a problem. Yet it has surfaced. It’s trumping all things to think. I actually usually toss it back in the pile and pull something more thinkable up. Avoidance at its best. I don’t need to over think it or think it. Except I do. I need to grieve it. Again.
I need it to die and be dead and be just something that got me to here. I need to be sadder than I am angry. Or I need the anger to be sadder. Or I need it to just go away. To just get over it.
When I let things go I feel I am forgetting something important. For this, it’s the pain. When it’s gone. What’s left? No pain. No pain not gain. I would apparently gain more since there was pain. I have gained more. I don’t need more pain. To gain again. Except that’s the words. So I keep remembering how much it hurt and how hard I didn’t try. I need new pain. This is old pain. I will not regain anything. I already gained for. This painful.
I can hear people saying it wasn’t anything I did wrong. Except I did. I put petite tomatoes in the chili once. I didn’t have socks and clothes clean and folded and out neatly away. I didn’t wash the dishes sometimes. I didn’t mow well. I didn’t not cry. I didn’t take short showers. I didn’t make the bed. Feed the kids perfect meals. Keep the baseboards clean. Make sure no one spilled on the white carpet. Keep everyone quiet. Tiptoe lighter. Love more. Or less. Or not at all. I didn’t do so much.
But I also didn’t get to sit and read, take time to walk, take trips to the woods to unwind, have my socks clean, eat petite diced tomatoes, know what eggs I liked. I didn’t get to love who I am. I didn’t get to show someone how to. I didn’t even know how to.
It’s my icky story. It’s half my life gone. It’s my pain. And my gain. I had an image of what being married is/was. I kept waiting for it. I kept trying for it. I kept wondering if I was wrong. It sits today in my head still. I have googled it. I love google. It can give you answers. Even if they are wrong. I can find an answer. If you dig and dig and dig you can find one that suites you. It never presented my answer. Even google failed me.
I know what marriage is not. By being not married anymore. I’m just not married anymore. It’s dead. It needs buried and not thought through. It’s surfaced because I am interacting with others more than I normally do. Because I’m grieving and this is also a dead to me. I suspect I will pull up all my losses one by one to see how they still feel. All waiting in line to come sit and chat for a bit to be buried again. But I’m also less guarded. I talk more openly about my losses, my pains and gains. I even admitted how guarded I am by showing a height with my hands in the air of a wall keeping others away. Way above my head. Because I see it. Because I built it. It’s my gain to keep away pain.
I know how to keep it up and I know where to let it down. Don’t I? If it is down or just able to be peaked through is it safe? I don’t need a game of Jenga with my life. Piece by piece removing things to expose lots of open holes to make it just lean and be weak. It will always fall. It depends on who pulls the last piece. I fear I will intentionally pull the weak one. To watch it fall before the other. It will fall. Unless you just leave the game before it gets weak. But I want to play again. To try. To see what happens. I’d like a good game of Jenga.
My marriage is dead. Not the thought of marriage again. I don’t have thoughts that say never again. I have thoughts that say not yet. I don’t think I did anything wrong. I think things were just wrong. I also think I was distracted with raising a child with special needs to see how wrong it was. To see that the expectations given to me were wrong. I don’t care how clean my baseboards are. Sometimes I look at them still and think of how clean they could be but baseboards get dirty, life is messy. I don’t have clean baseboard goals. I gain nothing. When I can see like spaghetti sauce or maybe chocolate or a bit of oatmeal I might clean it. But it’s just not that important to me if there is a small layer of dust on that tiny little edge that meets the wall.
I am more distracted and impatient than usual. It’s simple stress. It’s simple I’m worked to much. It’s simple I’m being talked to more by people. It’s simple thoughts of topics to be on too many to try and not be on one or two. Dead marriage. Dead father.
Grief is pulling at all my grief. It’s tugging at things I’ve lost. All my loss. It’s trying to mess with me. I’ve buried this marriage business a thousand times. I don’t need it dug up and sat back with me. Actually maybe I did. It came back up and sat there all dead with me and it just looked dead. It didn’t look interesting and almost alive. It came and it went. It got exactly one day to sit and try and see the life that once was. But it’s a once was.
It was Mother’s Day yesterday. I don’t do days. With titles. I think of people on days when I want to. I just don’t like being told it’s the day to do things. I don’t like to be told what to do. It’s that simple. I love my mother dearly, she is still alive and someday won’t be alive. My day was thinking of her. But I have been. She lost her husband. I take her diet cokes and mow terrible for her. And clean puppy poop. And carry laundry. I sit with her. I hug her. I tell her things. She isn’t dead. Dad is. She is hurting every day and I love her every day not just the day I’m told to. I don’t love her more that day either. I’m also busy that day helping others love theirs that do more or the same or not at all but are told to.
I am also a mother. It’s not my day it’s just a day. I don’t want my youngest thinking she needs to show me this day more or less than any other. She made me a painting. It didn’t make me cry. She wanted to make me so happy I cried. That was her goal. She said she remembered that I told her sometimes I’m crying happy tears and she wanted to see me not cry sad tears. Because My dad died and I am so sad. It worked. I am now. I’m a fantastic mother. I taught her to see my sad and want to show not sad. To see sad is also happy. With tears. Or that sad is sad. I don’t even know what I taught her. Except she knows it’s ok to cry both ways. She is going to be a great mother. Because I am. Because my mother is.
I just needed a day. A single day to see my gains. I can still feel the pain. It’s not deep inside. It’s more of a surface annoyance. I’m just moderately annoyed now with my loss of a marriage. I’m a moderate repeat thinker and now a moderately annoyed, what? Person? It’s nothing. I’m not moderately annoyed with this at all. It isn’t itchy like some things that annoy me. Its barely a surface annoyance. It’s just gone. I’m just moderately nothing. Except the repeat thinker. That’s still there. My gain is outweighing my pain. I will gain more because I will be pained again. I’m ready for new pain so I can gain more. It’s the saying. No pain, no gain.
Aspenleaf 