alone

i am alone in my office. i teach a financial fitness class every saturday this month to a group of women who make getting up on a saturday morning seem like a good idea. these women make me want to push through. sometimes it's not what you did or what you have its the people who surround you. i love these classes.

...

last night was not good. i made dinner, i set the table nice. i somehow believed that we would be the couple to defy all divorce story odds. we would stay friends. we would believe in eachother. we would be kind to ourselves, our pasts and eachother.

that was not the case.

we fought. he dissapointed me. i found myself mad when he said things that sounded like he was doing the right thing for himself finally (why can you do that now if you wouldn't do it the five years we were together and i begged you to) and mad when he said things that sounded like he was still making the same tired lethargic decisions (what will it take for you to hit rock bottom and just deal with your things). it's like no matter what he did i felt let down.

and also responsible. like i don't know if he can do it without me. and somehow that made me feel sad. like i was abandoning my own child. and i can't keep doing this for him. i can't keep righting his wrongs. i can't FIX THIS or FIX HIM or make him care or engage or change. but it made me feel bad/sad/helpless/.

so he left and i sat on a chair and i cried. and i didn't listen to anything. and i didn't say one word to anyone. because there is really nothing to say. just that it didn't work, i can't save him, and we definately can't be friends.

depeche mode, the smiths, and a wednesday is not hump day here.

i have left lives behind before. i have been a million people. i have hated a million days.

but i wish i didn't have to do this day.

it's just that i am used to his shoes in the closet. it's just that i am used to drinking the coffee he has left on the counter for me. it's just that i am not used to sleeping in a house alone anymore. it's just that thunder scares me.

it's just that.

i can't hide

i remember the first time we looked at rings. i had a broken heart (literally - it was a virus that effed up my sinus node and walking to the bathroom made my heart pound so hard my head would flutter. i passed time in mass general, rhode island hospital, newton-wellesley. i had ekg's and iv's and blow up leg cuffs to keep me from getting blood clots. i used a bed pan and watched my heart rate on a monitor shoot up to 200 just laying in bed then go all the way down to 30. in the end they told me there was nothing they could do. in the end they said they didn't know why it was happening and that they didn't know that it would ever stop now that it was mine. they mentioned pace makers and life spans and potasium levels patted my back and said they were sorry. i left rhode island hospital with a prescription for weekly blood tests, three bottles of pills and orders to lay flat on my back if my heart rate went over 150. i carried a stop watch to calculate my pulse. i became afraid to even take a shower if i was home alone). i had my questions. i had my doubts. there were so many parts of me that weren't fufilled. but hell. it was nice to have something that i could say for sure. because that month, those years, in the moments when i layed flat on my back on the floor waiting for my breath to come, my pulse to slow, i wasn't sure i had anything.

punches

i have a good swing but a bad land. i never protect my knuckles right. i don't know the right way to stand. i won't drink raw eggs but i feel very rocky these nights lifting weights and listening to my ipod in the angriest/most-triumphant way.

i mean he's right. i mean i am a bitch. i mean i do get angry every time i walk into the living room and hear the tv and see the lethargy and the dirty dishes and the dirty towels and the dirty past and the ways he doesn't even care if any of this/us/it succeeds.

so i quarentine myself to the back corner of the house. spend hours in my bedroom reading, drawing maps of where i have been, look for a light. i answer calls, i write letters, i close my eyes and visualize white light and pink sheilds and let my head feel heavy on the floor. i exercise, i fantasize, i hypothesize. its all very 2003 post-accident for me. waiting for the fog to lift. waiting for the horn to sound. the one that starts things.

because really i am not a bitch. really i am not rocky. really i am ready for the me i will be when i can finally put to rest all of this.