A non-virtual (AKA, "real world") fellow with whom I hadn't spoken in 2 months noticed the difference in my voice and outlook after a longish telconvo this morning. "How'd you know," he asked, "when you were going to make it?"
That was a very good question. I didn't have an answer, but now, as Miles Davis' live recording of "My Funny Valentine" comes to an end on iTunes -- something I could not possibly have listened to 2 months ago, and something which I was sure I deleted from my playlist -- I know what the answer is.
When I started to hear -- really hear -- and enjoy music again, that was when I'd crossed the Rubicon, that I was what Coach, as an old BUFF hand, will understand by the term "committed." There was no going back; I was on that path that exists for my steps alone.
The boy-child continues to cry. He continues to ache. He crawls up in my lap and wilts.
The girl-child is in some other dimension. It's just not real to her.
The WAW puts on a brave front, then retreats upstairs to the master bed to cry or Facebook 'n' cry or e-mail 'n' cry. And I, N.U.T.S.-bearing Vessel of Manly Assurance, knock gently, enter, wrap my arms around her, and let her cry. "I'm a piece of sh*t; I'm a piece of sh*t; I'm a piece of sh*t."
No, you're just someone who's hurting; who doesn't know what to do; who doesn't know which way is up.
"How can you say these things? I s*ck. I'm trash. I'm so empty inside. I'm dead."
SP's Thought Balloon: Yeah, we're both dead.
SP's Voice Balloon: One step at a time. Okay?
"I'm falling. I'm falling."
You won't fall too far. You're not working without a net. {Wipes away the tears, takes her face in his hand, looks into her eyes}: You're not alone. Now clean up and go be good for those kids.
And then Smiley's Person retreats to the Cave of Manitude, kills an oil can of Foster's Lager, chews an Ambien, and awaits Phlegyas to bring his boat across the River Styx, to drift into another night's flitting, sleep-like state.
T.S. Eliot and me, homez. We were not Prince Hamlet, nor were meant to be. To sleep -- but not to dream; ay, there's the rub, if in that sleep of death no dreams at all may come --
She would never be able to really feel this if you were distracting her with your drama. You are providing perhaps the only opportunity for her to experience this in real time. You are absolutely husbanding beyond anything I've ever seen or heard of in a sitch like this...be you and I wish you pleasant dreams; they will come again...
You're doing great through such a challenging time.
"My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." Thich Nhat Hanh
Through tears running down my face, I type. I wish you such peace in your heart and mind. May it find you when your eyes are open and continue when they are closed.
"It is excruciating pain. It is the pain of separation, the pain of loss, the pain of dreams and expectations unrealized. It is the loss and death of a mirage."
Those are very kind things to say, all, but perhaps misdirected. I'm just being a selfish pr*ck.
Today is WAW's birthday, and last night (this morning?) I could hear her through the bedroom door doing that huff-puff thing you do when you're sort of half-hyperventilating and trying not to cry, so in I went -- neither sleep nor dreams for SP, a mixed blessing -- sat beside her on the bed, talked her off the ledge, stroked her hair, and kissed her forehead and sent her back to the arms of Morpheus.
Yes, I comfort WAW and hold WAW and let WAW cry on my shoulder.
But it's all selfish. Because I'm On My Path. I don't Hate. I don't Fear. I don't Resent. And I don't Leave. I Hold Up My End -- because she can take happiness, she can take marriage, she can take the kids' sense of home and hearth, but she can't take that.
That's what I declared in The Smiliest Manifesto, anyway; that's how I said I was going to pay it off, those years of lousy husbanding (and b.t.w. that's a great gerund, @alive), and that's how I was going to pay it forward. That's how I roll.
So now I have to live it, right? I knew it would cost me. I knew I'd be confronting the pain head-on -- that I'd be welcoming the pain, inviting it in for a drink, letting it wash over me, full-immersion baptism, born again and hallelujah.
Oye vatos -- okay, put up or shut up; money, meet mouth.
(Cue the Chairman of the Board): So. So and so and so, he said, drawing breath. So if I don't roll My Way in crisis, when it hurts the most to do it -- if I don't roll my Way even with the woman I love in my arms, head on my shoulder, her tears rolling down my neck, body pressed against mine and accept that she's leaving, that I'll never feel that body pressed against mine again forever, and still comfort her, still Do. My. Job, no matter what it costs me to do it -- then what use am I to myself at all?
So I thank you for the support and the compliments, but really at the end of the day it's just me, Jack Horner, sticking a thumb in a pie and saying, "What a good boy am I."
Gardener, that's another nice thing someone has said to me.
But from my POV you're the inspiration. Words are words are words. If you impart meaning to them, you're inspiring yourself. And that, sir, is what I like to call "mojolation."
