"to be or not to be"

so this is it. this is what my life has become. not what i had worked so hard for. not what i had dreamed of as a little girl. all my tiny little dreams unmet or altered in such a way as to become punishments rather than blessings.

i had wanted to be safe and for less than two handfuls of years, with my Dragon, i was.

i had wanted a family. i have daughter and a son who i kept safe to their adulthood at great cost.

i had wanted a home. i never had that. first, it was his property, and then my Dragon and i were thrust into poverty and rentals and moving, always moving. but the children were safe and getting their college educations and that was what mattered at that time.

now i am not safe, my children are grown and no longer need me, and i have no real place. i am struggling and fearful and what is worse, now i must face all this alone. there is so much pressure to simply survive. roof. lights. food. and along side the barest of necessities more pain and longing than i have ever known. i miss his strength. i miss his arms. i miss laying beside him in the dark.

i hurt so much tonight. i can hardly breathe. and hope? where is it? why am i struggling to find it? i thought i could do this. i thought, maybe i could get a handle on this, but i am failing, i think. i am rock bottom and yet, i know i can get lower. i feel terrible and yet, i know i can feel worse. i am scratching in the dirt for hope of some kind, for some thing to turn around. i keep telling myself, "this is as bad as it will get. hang on." and then something happens and i am back to fighting for a single breath that does not have panic pressing down on my lungs. who am i anymore? i am not wife. i am not friend. i am a widow and yet, i do not seem to do that right.

forsaken. used and turned away from. unnailed, uncoffined, unknown. i do not remember where i read that, but it popped into my head tonight.

abandoned soul.

but i keep waking up. why? what for? how, when i go to bed in such pain? i go to sleep and i almost do not care. but i keep waking up. there must be some purpose, some reason i am still here. what? my children are safe and grown. he cannot touch them anymore. i was with my Dragon when he died so that he was not alone. that job is done.

maybe i am here for my two little dogs. i love them and they need me. we are true companions. maybe i am here for the quilts. the set of 3 quilts i have been commissioned to do at this time are very, very heavy with embroidery. very heavy embroidery of images that hold special meaning to the family. thousands and thousands of stitches. it all has to be done by hand. so maybe i am here for the quilts.

tomorrow i go to check on my application i put in for a job at Build-A-Bear. yes, the store where i bought Bunny, the star of all my photographs and her own Facebook page. she gets a lot of traffic, a lot of questions asked of her. there are people who will miss her being online when they do not even remember me. i post her in the third person and i have actually be sent an email telling me to "let her speak for herself." you have got to be kidding me. seriously? i wrote back that she signs to me since her lips are only embroidered on. i got back an, "oh, okay." truly surreal, but definitely not boring. Bunny laughed.

i do not know if i am going to make it. i do not know what else life is going to shove down my throat. but if i keep on waking up in the morning, then i will get out of bed. my dogs will need to go outside for walkies as Wallace would say. i have a ton of embroidery to do. i never stopped reading a book before i finished it. and i have only walked out of one movie in my entire life and that was after a very graphic scene involving piano wire as a garrote. some of those Japanese films get a little too much for me.

it hurts to breathe tonight. it hurts to think about getting up in the morning. it hurts to be so lonely and yet i cannot seem to find anyone who will sit with me, stay with me, even for a little while that doesn't involve using me for my hands. {that sounds wrong but you know what i mean} the counselor i was talking to seems to think i am fine and her caseload is crammed. she says i am articulate and aware, that i am working through my issues on my own very well through my writing {apparently i "really know how to convey a thought"}, and that i am handling my solitary isolation with the "grace of a cloister." she was actually impressed with the number of hours i am alone. 16 - 20 hours a month. that's the extent of human contact that i have. out of a month i cannot make up the hours of one full day spent with another human being. face time as she called it. oh, and yeah, if i feel like taking my life, i am to call her. but she knows i am not the type. i took the test. i passed. flying colors. otherwise, ttfn.

and then there were none.

so here i am tonight. and i am tired, and dejected, and hurting so much. i am reaching out, but it will be hours, or days before anyone may read these words, and figure out what to say in response, if there is anything to say. apparently i am doing fine on my own.

so i will handle it on my own. i will force myself to calm down. i will do what i always do. i will turn my mind to him. i may go outside on the balcony, in the darkness, and watch the moon. i will close my eyes to the cool breeze and remember the feel of his hands. i will call up his voice. i will let it wash over me and take me far away from this place.

i will try to remember, and accept, that once; once i was loved,

and he did not leave me.

it took an act of God to take him away from me.

i will remember the time i had with him and what we meant to each other. i will remember how we looked at each other and knew, we just knew how to communicate without words. then i will go to bed and try to sleep. and if i wake up in the morning, well, i will keep taking care of myself by myself all over again.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

~ Shakespeare, Sonnet 29