Last night, I slept fitfully. I felt the phantom presence. The one I love and miss, I felt him, though he was not beside me. I hallucinated him. I woke. Alone. Again.
*Sigh*
I could feel her today. More so than the other days. When the surrealism of life without her strikes me without warning.
When I find myself driving the wrong way home.
When I feel like I'm waking from a dream.
I found myself today in that state. In the genius room, after lunch, I almost took off my shirt - not realizing that I hadn't gone into the staff bathroom. I caught myself, of course, but then laughed hysterically at my disorientation. And of course, the potential HR violation and the imagined responses of the managers watching the closed circuit cameras a mere three feet away.
The nebulous consciousness, entirely obscuring my recent lucidity: I am inscrutable.
I am lost.
I felt it when I finally awoke today, grasping, I startled myself to wakefulness. Then I lay in the bed, crushed by the realization that it was all a dream, and that this was reality.
I thought back to the days - so many days, in the seemingly distant past. Hands perpetually clasped, we always stood together, everywhere. She was the pretty one, the social one, everybody's darling.
I was only the darling of my PopPop.
Golden child, she was always there, my historian. I never bothered to remember. I was never the one who understood time. We shared a consciousness: mutually exclusive. She had the realm of the human, the temporal - I the cerebral, the esoteric. Together we were a complete person. We each longed for the other half, and never really found it in our chosen mates, though it wasn't for lack of trying nor effort or devotion. We gave our all. We both failed.
The day that lives in infamy. It is today. The day I made the choice to let her go.
I am always perplexed by my reactions to this day. It seems like each time I relive it anew. Each time it is the same, and entirely different.
There is always the anger, the righteous indignation, the fury: at myself, at the Universe, God, her husband, the doctors... and the inevitable 'why?' that has no answer.
There is always the pity, for myself, for the kids, for each of us that lost her light. There is the relief and the joy to recount those who are still in my life, and I am thankful anew for each precious light that remains.
And then the thoughts begin, the deep thoughts of my own mind, that I can't stop. They threaten to wash me in the undertow of the reality. I am returned to that day, and as in all my recollections, the moment is exaggerated as I relive it, slowed down, savored, and the pain and the bitterness acrid, choking, threatening to consume me - I can't breathe. My chest is squeezed. I am alone. Alone.
Did it happen? Did any of it happen? My childhood, the late nights: ever the insomniac, I would wake - light the candles in my room, pray, meditate. I was so precocious. A willowy eight year old, sitting in the beam of moonlight that streaked into the bedroom, lighting her candle, sitting in her solitude, searching for peace and finding none. Her sister, awakened by the sulfur smell, coming to join her in the early morning, throwing arms around her, saying nothing. We would stay like that, sometimes falling asleep under the window, sometimes returning to our beds. Who remembers this now? Was it a dream? This faded photograph in my mind - was it real? Who can corroborate? Who remembers? Where is my heart?
This windy night, the leaves sing to me. Soon, this day will be over, and I again will search for slumber and find none. The most I can hope for is a precious dream. A transient moment, a hallucinatory connection to the one who lives not so far from me, in another consciousness, in my heart - it's there until I wake. It vanishes into the first light of day and I realize the reality once again.
The breath I felt, warm on my neck, the arms around me. False, all false, mere wishes - I have none of this. Perhaps I am fated to this, perhaps all the solipsists conspire and create this phantom dimension in which I am trapped, unable to transmute my destiny from pain and longing into power and redemption.
She will not be here this Christmas either.
*Sigh*
I could feel her today. More so than the other days. When the surrealism of life without her strikes me without warning.
When I find myself driving the wrong way home.
When I feel like I'm waking from a dream.
I found myself today in that state. In the genius room, after lunch, I almost took off my shirt - not realizing that I hadn't gone into the staff bathroom. I caught myself, of course, but then laughed hysterically at my disorientation. And of course, the potential HR violation and the imagined responses of the managers watching the closed circuit cameras a mere three feet away.
The nebulous consciousness, entirely obscuring my recent lucidity: I am inscrutable.
I am lost.
I felt it when I finally awoke today, grasping, I startled myself to wakefulness. Then I lay in the bed, crushed by the realization that it was all a dream, and that this was reality.
I thought back to the days - so many days, in the seemingly distant past. Hands perpetually clasped, we always stood together, everywhere. She was the pretty one, the social one, everybody's darling.
I was only the darling of my PopPop.
Golden child, she was always there, my historian. I never bothered to remember. I was never the one who understood time. We shared a consciousness: mutually exclusive. She had the realm of the human, the temporal - I the cerebral, the esoteric. Together we were a complete person. We each longed for the other half, and never really found it in our chosen mates, though it wasn't for lack of trying nor effort or devotion. We gave our all. We both failed.
The day that lives in infamy. It is today. The day I made the choice to let her go.
I am always perplexed by my reactions to this day. It seems like each time I relive it anew. Each time it is the same, and entirely different.
There is always the anger, the righteous indignation, the fury: at myself, at the Universe, God, her husband, the doctors... and the inevitable 'why?' that has no answer.
There is always the pity, for myself, for the kids, for each of us that lost her light. There is the relief and the joy to recount those who are still in my life, and I am thankful anew for each precious light that remains.
And then the thoughts begin, the deep thoughts of my own mind, that I can't stop. They threaten to wash me in the undertow of the reality. I am returned to that day, and as in all my recollections, the moment is exaggerated as I relive it, slowed down, savored, and the pain and the bitterness acrid, choking, threatening to consume me - I can't breathe. My chest is squeezed. I am alone. Alone.
Did it happen? Did any of it happen? My childhood, the late nights: ever the insomniac, I would wake - light the candles in my room, pray, meditate. I was so precocious. A willowy eight year old, sitting in the beam of moonlight that streaked into the bedroom, lighting her candle, sitting in her solitude, searching for peace and finding none. Her sister, awakened by the sulfur smell, coming to join her in the early morning, throwing arms around her, saying nothing. We would stay like that, sometimes falling asleep under the window, sometimes returning to our beds. Who remembers this now? Was it a dream? This faded photograph in my mind - was it real? Who can corroborate? Who remembers? Where is my heart?
This windy night, the leaves sing to me. Soon, this day will be over, and I again will search for slumber and find none. The most I can hope for is a precious dream. A transient moment, a hallucinatory connection to the one who lives not so far from me, in another consciousness, in my heart - it's there until I wake. It vanishes into the first light of day and I realize the reality once again.
The breath I felt, warm on my neck, the arms around me. False, all false, mere wishes - I have none of this. Perhaps I am fated to this, perhaps all the solipsists conspire and create this phantom dimension in which I am trapped, unable to transmute my destiny from pain and longing into power and redemption.
She will not be here this Christmas either.
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