Day 2
There are days when I tell myself I tired everything I could (therapy, though probably not enough of it; stick-to-it-iveness; etc.), and there are days when I think I could have tried more, tried harder, or tried something different, though I’m not sure exactly what. There are days when I see mistakes early in the threads of the marriage and I think, If I had just paused then, and gone back and picked up the dropped stitch, then the sweater would have come out fine, and there are days I think that even if I had ripped out and reknitted row after row, the sweater would never have been other than misshapen, unwearable. (from Still by Lauren Winner, p.5)
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If you haven’t read, or if you don’t know, yesterday my boyfriend Nathan and I broke up. (He, please note, broke up with me, which is why there’s all the emotions, and so on.)
Details–I won’t get into. It’s a miracle I can write this without falling apart. Thank you to the Moscow Mule Bethany made for me, I suppose.
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Today I cried when I tried to get work done. I cried when I realized I have to have a roommate, one who isn’t my lover. I cried when I saw his coffee mug (still full from two days ago) on his desk. I cried when I thought about undressing my first apartment, our first apartment.
I am thankful for the numb moments, those “formal feelings” when I can just get work done–read, write, tell stories. “The feet, Mechanical, go round.” (Emily Dickinson) I’m thankful when I can laugh; and I have laughed.
But later tonight I will leave Bethany, and her baby belly, and her pup and have to sleep in a lonely bed again and remember that one memory that pushes me into another fit of sobs. (Dammit, the smell of his pillow. His slippers flung in the closet.)
O God.
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I wrote this poem two years ago, and it’s been on my mind again. Nights are hard because I’m afraid of the mornings. (I speak not only of this breakup, but all similarly hard times.) I sometimes pray that verse in Corithinians, that “joy comes with the morning.” A lot of time I know that’s complete bullshit, because in the morning I wake up to reality. And I’m sad and pissed, and can only roll over to watch The Mary Tyler Moore Show or else I’ll fall to pieces (or never get out of bed). I suppose this is my grieving process.
The Morning After, a sonnet
Those mornings you wake up emotionally hung over,
the taste your slurred suggestion:
Let’s just be friends
still bitter on your tongue. As if he should have taken you seriously
thru a text message: U’s & SRY’s abbreviated.
Your thoughts, not so abbreviated, but as twisted as you,
waking up in your bed, wishing it were his,
with your clothes not quite on correctly, arm holes
reaching back to your backbone, jean buttons not aligned
with your belly button. Your hair plastered
to your face, damp, wiry, pungent.
Your hands shaking, curled, already
waiting for a bottle of something
sour to reach your fingers, your mouth.
June 11, 2014