9/14/2024
I enjoy the date stamp I use in my journal because each time I sit down to write I can see the last time I formally visited with myself. Most of my entries start with an apology for not having stopped by lately. It’s been 10 weeks since my last entry, which was 2 days before Abby ended her life. Maybe she had already decided to move on, and maybe I knew it too. I wrote, “so many questions, some of an uncertain future and some of a mysterious past.” There was so much I wish I would have known on that day, but I work hard not to let hindsight take the drivers seat.
This morning I slept alone in the bed, Kira took the couch, and I woke up feeling rested for the first time in weeks. I sleepily wandered into the den and cuddled up with Kira on the couch. After she left for her early shift I laid back in bed and read Sy Safransky’s “Many Alarm Clocks,” a loving companion of a book that has been a teacher of how to juggle my thoughts. Work stress floated into my head. I let it pass me by. I fed Olive. I chugged Nettles, took vitamin D, brushed my teeth, made the bed, and opened all the blinds. It’s rainy today but I like to pretend that the sun and the plants are my good friends from different circles, and that every morning I get to introduce the two of them— “You’ll love each other!” and then they hang out all day without me because they hit it off so well.
I’d like to open this channel up again, finding my words, leaning into a way of expression, a releasing, a shaping or sculpting of my inner landscape. It’s a lot to carry on the inside. It’s also a lot to release. Maybe my mornings can be for this.