Tuesday, December 26, 2006

distilled emo

here's what just kept me in bed crying for an hour:

the day my shoulder was broken, I spent the morning in the emergency room. He picked me up from the emergency room but became enraged when he realized that I had not called ahead to have my prescription filled. Because he did not want to wait for me at the pharmacy he drove off and left me there. I took a cab home.

I walked in the door and his mother asked why i had a sling. i had no answer for her. why she did not know is still a mystery to me. she knew why. the kids were confused. i had been given a shot of painkillers and I just wanted to go upstairs and lie down. Sleep, egh, I knew that would not come but I wanted to check out for a while after spending so much time pretending to the nurses that everything was OK, I was not what they thought I was, plus juggling the pharmacist and his temper tantrum, plus calling a cab... i just wanted to lie down.

I went upstairs and lay down but his older son missed me. They were decorating the tree and his grandmother was there, his father was there, his brother was there, but he wanted me. Me. He came upstairs and sat on the bed next to me and asked if I was OK and laid down next to me. Me. He loved me. He was worried about me. Knowing this I got up, went downstairs and helped decorate the tree with the man who had broken my shoulder. I wanted it to be okay. I wanted to make a nice thing happen.

Later, after we dropped the kids off, he complimented me, saying I was funny, I was very present, I was completely on the kids' level as we decorated the tree. I think he was having a panic attack. I think I had to sit up with him as he did this. I don't remember exactly, that time is a bit of a blur.

All I know is, it took years for that little boy to love me enough to seek me out and lay down next to me when I was in pain and feeling sick. That was a precious gift and I had to leave it behind when I left. I'm supposed to meet my new love's two children and all I can think is they won't be the old ones, and how will I ever earn that kind of love again? And even if I could, who am I to deserve it? Will the children ever understand? Will I ever connect like that with my own children? My new stepchildren?

This is why I keep my feelings at a distance. I feel like as I type my hands are sticking out of a cloud. I feel like an emotional Pigpen, dread misting about my body wherever I go. I don't know where to go with these feelings; I prefer when they are stuffed down and can't bother me. I'm doing my best, I understand this is part of the recovery, but it is too too hard. It is too too hard.