The mind becomes a ticking time bomb, silence settling like a fog. Questions have no answers and the weight of every one of them smothers what you do have. You cannot breathe, for the journey your mind takes you on a whirlwind of emotions you run down rabbit holes better suited to a tale of Alice and the person you wish to be is masked by this temporary madness …
Published on Medium: P.S. I Love You for Poetry Sunday
It’s raining, a drink of water after parched days. The ground was littered with odd drops, scattered randomly, before the thunder came and the heavens opened.
The rain always stops me in my tracks. I wait. I watch. I wonder. And my heart aches with some unfathomable feeling that soaks me to my core with a haunting want …
Published on Medium: P.S. I Love You for Poetry Sunday
Joan Didion said in her memoir, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” ‘You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.’
Life as I knew it ended years ago. My marriage, which had been on a slow march toward its end from inception, kept me engrossed and distracted with its disintegration and a gradual and normalizing creep of isolation.
During this time, my mother was ill, though none of us knew it. We attributed her forgetfulness to aging. We had no clue that her brain was also on that slow march to disintegration. I reflect when I first realized I’d lost her, or a portion of her, and though there were many moments over the years I recall as suspect, the first moment emblazoned in my memory as a loss is when I turned 50.
I am the youngest of three children and the only girl — my mother and I have had a close relationship. Forgetting my birthday is not something she would have done. But, she did. At the time, alarm bells did not ring, quite possibly because of the pain and turmoil in my marriage. As I’ve said, I was distracted, and it’s challenging to fight a battle on two fronts.
The thought perches upon my shoulder, like a sparrow, quietly undemanding, yet claiming my attention. It’s softness and patience unmoors me, as time races past the point I felt certain I’d reach, the person I’d become …
Published on Medium: P.S. I Love You for Poetry Sunday
Recently I was told that my ex-husband and I were the perfect examples of how to do divorce right, as if doing it ‘right’ made it more palatable. I’m not sure divorce is ever ‘done right,’ but I admit our uncoupling turned out to be less painful, arduous, and angry than I ever believed it would be. Collaborative divorce was the gateway to this peaceful coexistence.
From day one, the tenure and tenor of our marriage were acrimonious. I had contemplated divorce on several occasions, but never felt it would be the final resolution.
I entered marriage with the highest of hopes after a long-distance courtship that was romantic and replete with long letters and phone calls. Despite its romantic beginnings, my marriage was a difficult one. I was hopeful and maybe little naïve, but I never expected it to be a bed of roses — and it wasn’t, except for the thorns …