Down Home Girl

I have been such a slacker, coming home, drinking beer, letting my mind drift to places far away from where I am at the moment... I keep saying that I need to get back to me, to being myself, but me and myself, they are changing as I type this very sentence. They won't be the same in five minutes as they are right now. So I have to let these moments turn into days turn into weeks, and go with whatever they bring with them so that I can mourn this loss of a marriage and what might have been and get on with some kind of life, a better life. Because it IS for the better, regardless of how shitty it feels now or might feel tomorrow.

Divorce is an ugly thing full of emotion, one day you are superhuman and can weather any heartache, heartbreak, bent and broken mind or soul... The next you fall down on your knees and beg to have the broken and tangled branches miraculously put back on the tree that they were suddenly snapped from. That won't happen, ever, so get used to it and move on... Find a new you and yourself to dance with and laugh at, all in good fun of course. Learn from this and never lose yourself again, because this new person that you will become, will be strong enough to fly, rooted enough to grow, and you will like her, a lot. She will show you the rest of your life, all of the places you can go, things you can do, that other people told you were ridiculous or impossible. Such dream killers they were...

I don't do so much begging for fixed branches anymore, in fact whole days go by without it. I start to think that maybe I might just gather them up and make some kind of wreath out of them and place them on some unknown person's grave somewhere. Dead, twisted, mangled branches, belong in a place of death, not here at my feet where new life is slowly taking hold. I don't want to look at them, trip over them, cut my fingers or cheeks on their thorns any longer.

This new self, so elusive like a ghost for now. Sometimes I feel her touch my hair, my shoulder... other times I feel her warm breath on my face, a gentle nudge in the right direction. A whisper in my ear telling me to go on, take a chance, don't be afraid. But someday she will be so much more than just a ghost. I see her now in pictures, a hint here and there of a new smile and a new light in my eyes, she's revealing herself a little at a time, just the way it should be, the way it always is when people mourn the death of what was a life they knew for so long.. Too much too soon and she disappears forever. So I take what I can get, and I wait patiently for what she brings, a little at a time...