The Yearning is Killing Me

“Life will break you.

Nobody can protect you from that,

and living alone won’t either,

for solitude will also break you with its yearning.

You have to love.

You have to feel.

It is the reason you are here on earth.

You are here to risk your heart.

You are here to be swallowed up.

And when it happens that you are broken,

or betrayed, or left, or hurt,

or death brushes near,

let yourself sit by an apple tree

and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps,

wasting their sweetness.

Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

― Louise Erdrich

The End Of My Rope

A long time has passed since I've written to you...I have been away. You know, the annual trip down South to be with family.  You are there, or some of your ashes are.  I can't think more on that though, it's too strange to think of.

I miss you David, God how I do. Years have gone by, but the soul twisting pain has not left me. It moves with me like a feather fine breeze that barely kisses the skin. It is a part of me that I've learned to hide so very well. People just don't want to know, don't want to see. It's a deformity people are far too uncomfortable with so you learn to hide, for them.

I'm in dire straits now love. Ha, when am I not it seems. I clawed my way to the surface, a process that has taken 3 years, only to find I am close to destitute. The insurance is almost gone. I have been rejected by more job opportunities than I can count on both hands and both feet and both of each of yours. The future looks bleak. I can't afford to stay in our home anymore, but I can't get into another place because of no secure job for a year or more.

What do I do? Arkansas looks like the only immediate option but I so don't want to move there...not again, It was not a good place for me...the things that happened there haunt me still and I fear I would never get back out. You rescued me once, who will rescue me again?

I'm scared.

I'm broke.

I'm alone.

I'm scarred.

I'm done.

Help me babe, hit me over the head with a lightning bolt and magically make me better. I've been climbing through shit storm after shit storm after shit storm for 20 years and it has taken a MAJOR toll on me...

Yeah...I'm done.

How Long?

I threw away your underwear today.  

Your socks too.  

And then I threw up.

I am no better.  All these damn months later, I am no better at all.

In fact, I think I feel worse.  It is a stuck, lost, empty, lonely, broken feeling that has become lodged in the center of my chest.  It allows very little air to pass and I still find myself gasping from time to time.  I'll be watching television or reading and suddenly realize that I can't breathe. It's too much.

You are the first thing I think of when I open my eyes, the last again before they close for the night...and all the minutes in between.  

This pain is consuming me.

It is eating me alive and I don't know how to make it go away.  I laugh, I joke, I do.  I do everything I'm supposed to do but it isn't helping at all. 

How long can I go on like this.  How long can one person live with pain like this.

I threw away your socks and underwear and it damn near killed me.  What the fuck David!  

I found dust all over your bed pillows and I burst out crying and couldn't wipe it off fast enough. Fuck  Fuck Fuck!  

I don't want to do this anymore,  I just don't want to live this way any longer.  It hurts so so bad.  I just want to see you and feel you and smell your skin.  I love you so much David.  How fucked up is that...I'm hopelessly in love with a dead man.  God I need help.  I just need it to all go away.

I don't want to live this life anymore.