birthday

i have this weekend off.  today, tomorrow, and sunday.  laundry done.  a bit of food in the fridge.  going in the morning for an oil change.  cable television cancelled.  only internet now.  counting pennies.  filed a waiver of hardship with the VA....waiting.  exhausted and lonely and......

but i have my dogs and a job and my children.  i do have my bit of money even if i juggle the food end of things.  i have health care.  i had love.

i had my time at the ocean's edge.  i had my love, my Dragon.  {i still have him in my every thought.}

i went to the doctor for my hand.  it's in a splint now.  bone chip.  all this time it was a legitimate health issue and not my being tired and fretful or arthritis.  well, there is arthritis there, too, but he said, "chipped bone in there, so that must be hurting quite a bit more than regular arthritis."  it does.  it will for a while.  i didn't accept a pain script.  i can deal with pain.  don't need to spend that money.

it's coming on my "season."  my birthday is next week.  i will be 2 years older than my mother was when she died.  it feels weird.

9 February will be 4 years since he died.  it feels so long ago and then i gasp and it feels like last summer.  the pain can burn inside my veins and my neck feels hot.  my tears burn my eyes.  i shake.

eyes open, eyes closed, i can still feel him beside me; remember what it was like.  i remember holding his hand.  touching his beard.

but i look at pictures of him and i feel lost from him.  the memory, vivid though it is, feels far away.  there is an ebb and flow to the intensity of my memories.  i feel like i strain for more - like the way he smelled, the sound of his voice.  touch is all i can remember really well and the warmth of his body.  is it because my mind is purposely trying to cloud the memories behind a veil to protect me from continuing this hard grief?

i miss him so.  i miss the simple companionship we had.  i drive home from work at 10 PM and i hang up from talking to my daughter.  i know i will walk into my apartment to care for my little dogs, but i will have no supper waiting, no warm arms to embrace me, no questions about how my day was, no one to wonder should i not make it home that night.

my birthday is coming up and there will be no party.  i work that day.  it's not big deal.  i'll be turning 55.  not any big deal at all.

and it's childish of me to wish it were a small bit of a big deal.

i wish i could call him back to me.  i always, still, look to the moon.  but is it more the analogy that i have put myself on the moon looking down at life?  am i the one that is still and lifeless?  or is my image of my Dragon flying off to Heaven, around the moon, looking back at me that is the correct one?  is any dream of a lost loved one, dreams that last forever, healthy?  am i moving on as they say?  i am living.  but i love him.  i am supporting myself, fighting for myself, but i still love him.  the ebb and flow of the salt water that makes up my tears.

LOOK how the pale queen of the silent night

Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,

And he, as long as she is in his sight,

With her full tide is ready her to honor.

But when the silver waggon of the moon

Is mounted up so high he cannot follow,

The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan,

And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow.

So you that are the sovereign of my heart

Have all my joys attending on your will;

My joys low-ebbing when you do depart,

When you return their tide my heart doth fill.

So as you come and as you do depart,

Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.

Charles Best

 my birthday is coming up.  i have two friends who will be waiting for me to come back to them after work.  i think i will stop off and get a cupcake and a candle and make a wish.

Mr. Scootie Wootums, Lord of the Dance with the Stardust Eyes

 Ms. Carmen Sophia, the Wild Gypsy Girl with the Sensitive Soul

the kind of friends who are constant in an inconstant world.