do justice to this life

and it cost me almost, almost as much as my rent. i couldn't swing it, not even with my son's contribution. going to have to wait for the bill for the amount i could not pay and do the payment plan.

but, he was nice. the office was clean and soothing. the nurse was funny and sweet. they talked to me. really talked to me. answered questions. the lab vampires were hysterical. everyone was so very nice.

so, yeah. i have diabetes and high blood pressure. slam, bam, thank you. that's unless my blood work comes back with some horrible, unnamable disease on top of all that.

how can i live as timid as i have become and live well? how can i do justice to this life i have if i am always worrying, always pining for something i can't have?

i want a friend who i can call on to do stuff with, like go to that doctor's appointment when my daughter could not go. i want a here in my face pal to come over and eat with, laugh with, do the occasional thing with. not all the time. just once a month or so. i wouldn't be a burden.

i want to know what some of those women out there are thinking,; the ones i went on that retreat with, when they see on Facebook that i am struggling, and they ignore it. i thought we had connected. i called us a "tribe." i photographed the whole thing. i felt like there were others out there who understood, more than just that "get it" thing i always hear and see being batted about. what happened to them? was just me not enough? and why? why am i not ever enough without all the sewing and creative stuff? just me.

i want him back. i want him to whisper in my ear and feel his warm breath. i want my skin to tingle again and my body to come alive. i feel so dead inside that i wonder if, in all seriousness, a huge part of me didn't die with him. i tried taking my rings off. i froze. i couldn't leave the bathroom. when i put them quickly back on i felt like myself again. married to my Carl. i still feel so very married. i only want him.

a lot of men come through the store. nice looking me of a certain age. divorced mostly. buying for their children. they talk. they flirt. i am not aware of the flirting until they leave and one of the other girls i work with comes over and says, "hey, he was nice looking and he was really flirting with you." i do the furrowed brow thing and say stupidly, "huh?" never knew it happened. i only see single men as fathers buying for their children, never as men. i see them as handsome, too, but from a drawing/artist point of view. never as a woman. i have my Greek god and he died, but he is still mine and i am still his.

i am scared of living and scared of dying. living is mundane now. there is no ocean. there is no life as i relate to it here in this city. living is bills and money worries and health scares and worries. living is waiting on people to notice me and then watching them ignore me and then forget me. living is too hard to do and yet, living is what i have to do to get to where i want to go. i am trying to live with a kind of rumpled and messed up grace that honors my children and my Dragon. ah, my lovely, lovely Dragon. just the words echo through me like a song that i am struggling to not sing out loud.

i an scared of dying. what if i don't find him? what if i am lost in some horrible blank, colorless world like my nightmares? or, oh, God please forbid, stuck as a lost soul in my tiny apartment to haunt the next tenant. i'll end up being a made for tv movie on the Chiller network or SyFy Saturday night, "the most terrifying night on television."

i want to go "home," to live and when i die. i want to win a lottery so i can take that money and go live on the beach. to hell with rising ocean levels. i need the sound of the surf. i need the peace of walking with my feet in salt water. and when i die, i want to go "home" to the Heaven that is offered. i want to be forgiven for being a wimp all my life, for being hurt all my life and feeling so badly. i want to find my Carl and hold his hand and find the beach in Heaven, and live forever with him there.

but first, i need to find a way to do justice to this life. i need to just get past the lab results, find the food i can eat and not be so flippin' hungry, {i've lost 8 pounds in 5 weeks}, and accept that working to make toys for people is, though a humble job, a sometimes profound one for some. my heart ceremonies matter in some way to the sea of life. one tiny ripple expands to something that touches more than i can ever know.

i need to see a way to do justice to this life; even if i go against the grief time lines and stages ~ wearing my wedding rings, and feeling married to him forever.

“We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.”