I Forget to Breathe

Last night I had a serious bout of insomnia and hot flashes. I finally got my hands on a copy of Maggie Smith’s memoir, “You Could Make this Place Beautiful” and of course I couldn’t put it down.

I have been working on a post for my Sunday email to my amazing readers (yes, you!) for about two weeks and it wasn’t flowing properly. I panicked and sent it to my kind and intelligent writing friend all the way in New Mexico to have a look and help me get moving on it. I’m so grateful to have her in my corner and she’s so supportive even when her personal world is in turmoil she helped me.

It’s a weird thing when the words come easily out and feel so right. Like I said, I was reading Maggie Smith’s book and the words came out. But I didn’t mention I was myself in serious pain from surgery I had on Thursday to help me along in this process of aging. The joy of being a woman of that age where you have to keep trying the process of elimination to get the body to go into its natural dormant state. It’s not easy and yet the words came out like this poem of sorts. So thanks for reading my inner most thoughts through my pain because life isn’t about bypassing it.

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I forget to breathe.

I want him to love the world because I brought him here.

I want him to not only see the beauty but verbally express it to me.

Like we used to narrate to one another when he was little.

Do you smell the garbage truck, see the leaves falling from the trees, do you hear the cassowary?

I want to feel like the morning star with you once again interacting with the world.

And yet as I watch you from a distance in your isolation, in your own internal secret world, I feel guilty for enjoying my own life.

Mixed with vitality and despair filled with a burning to forget long enough to be seen as a purposeful goddess changing hearts and minds with words.

I see the kind brown eyes and I force my energy not to reek of desperation or neediness to connect on a deep level.

I forget to breathe.

I shoot beams of love from my blue eyes to him encompass like a powerful force of light to hold us in the same realm if for a moment.

I forget to breathe.

Nothing much comes forward from him except brief words like fine, video games, lunch, poke, drive around, played drums, nothing new.

You have to let go they say.

You have to let him have his own journey they say.

You have to let him make his own mistakes they say.

I forget to breathe.

But he is ALONE.

He doesn’t interact with ANYONE besides the cashier, his manager at the part time job or customers, “Can I get you anything else?”

At the moment he lives on his own and his energy is not physically around me and I breathe a little better.

I catch myself being light, free and within a motivation to create- writing, workshops, vision boards.

My life force is alive and kicking.

And then I remember he is ALONE.

And then I remember his quiet energy when we live together.

I can feel it through the walls.

I can feel the weight of my projections wanting him to have my vitality.

And I allow him to have it, but he doesn’t want it or even know I’m trying to give it.

Energy is a wicked thing weighing down on me like a school bus trying to bring me to the wisdom of a class in letting go for the zillionth time.

This diagnosis that robbed him of his entire adolescent development.

Robbing him of nurturing friendships.

Working through the awkward moments to come out the other side.

No need to feel sad he didn’t have prom like other teens due to the pandemic.

I had a sigh of relief that all the teens missed out on that milestone not just my own.

I have the answers for the next level of recovery. I will try to breathe as I wait for his green light.

The waiting game is stuffed with cotton up to my neck. I wait for the soft glow of the ember to burn it up.

The ember to catch hold of him even if for a few hours or days.

And so I buy those tickets for us to hear a band because I know he loves live music. And we don’t have the pressure of talking, just the experience of listening to the energetic waves of goodness.

And I let go once again and breathe for a while.