September 5th, 2019
Batten down the hatches
“Love, as the poet says, is like the spring. It grows on you and seduces you slowly and gently, but it holds tight like the roots of a tree. You don't know until you're ready to go that you can't move, that you would have to mutilate yourself in order to be free. That's the feeling. It doesn't last, at least it doesn't have to. But it holds on like a steel claw in your chest. Even if the tree dies, the roots cling to you. I've seen men and women give up everything for love that once was.”
― Walter Mosley, The Man in My Basement
Twice a day, I let myself check his location. 1) When I wake up to run, and he is home. 2) In the morning, when he is at the office.
I don’t look at night anymore. There were too many times that he wasn't where I would have hoped. Those times, I felt lightheaded and panicked, like I might faint, or that I might call a car and go to where he was to make a scene. As though the intensity of my obsession would bring him around to my way of thinking; as though wanting someone bad enough could be healing, and not additionally destructive.
Three weeks stretch into four, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is forever. I meditate, I stand in Lake Michigan, I try to self-soothe: I chose this. I considered a lifetime of everything I’ve asked for now, and I politely demurred. I am not so different from the person who made that choice. You can honor that decision, if you need to.
Also, forever can end whenever I want it to. Whether I neatly clip the lines or burn them all down, isolation is always an option I can adopt unilaterally. Doing that used to make me feel so powerful, and feeling powerful is something I miss.
There's a lot that I miss.
I'm starting to think that I'm not riding this storm out until it passes. Maybe I’m going to die here.