This morning, the belly is unhappy.
I wake up in some discomfort, shift in the bed that is not mine. The bedding is delicious and heavy, but my belly won’t stop hurting, no matter which way I turn.
The body reflects the mind, I recall reading. Makes sense enough.
I sit up. I hear contractors outside—further proof that this is not my house. I remember definitively: yes, I am away.
But I can’t get away from myself, no matter how far I go, no matter how much gas I put in the car.
My dreams were difficult ones again. They stick to certain themes: my not belonging, my being left behind.
I shudder, recalling some of the images, faces I wish and don’t wish to see.
I realize as I sip my morning tea that my intuition is busted, and I don’t know what to do with a busted intuition. Even craigslist, temporary home for all things half-lost and half-found, can’t take my broken intuition off my hands, out of my gut.
I realize what a gift it once was. I used to know, or think I knew, what I needed, wanted. It worked for many years: it led me to the college I loved, it led me to the beginnings of the woman I hoped to be, it led me to wonderful people I loved, it led me to a marriage I was absolutely certain about, a union that led to two amazing, confounding daughters that must be, or the world would not turn on its axis. This, I still know.
I liked that feeling very much—that feeling of being absolutely certain, absolutely sure, that my direction was the right one. I knew the quiet voice well. I trusted what it had to say.
But it’s not working anymore.
It still tells me that the marriage was right. Worse, it tells me it can be fixed, if only, if only, if only this or that or this or that. It’s urgent, insistent. And it makes me sick, now, to hear it. Because there is absolutely zero empirical evidence that what it tells me is true, could be true.
It wants what used to be. It wants it so keenly, that I need to separate it from myself, excise the voice. Because it’s no longer leading me forward — it wants to go back. It’s still sure true old love will prevail, that all could be healed and mended, with enough time. It believes powerfully in the past, and now refuses to comment on the future, leaving me without a compass when it comes to creating a new life and new love and new connections and the commitments that go with them.
It doesn’t listen when I tell it what it takes for reunion: at the bare minimum, both parties need to want that. It goes on and on and on, the old intuition, until I want to scream. I want to cut it out of myself with a knife, because it is becoming a cancer I cannot manage.
I honestly don’t know what to do with it, the old, once-trusted voice. On one hand, I feel grateful to it for getting me this far. But mostly, these days, I just want to tear it out of my chest, drag it out back, and shoot it. Put it out of its misery, which is my misery.
I need a new inner voice. I need to trust myself again. There are opportunities, but I don’t know how to navigate anymore. I am flying blind, is how it feels.
“But what do you want?” people ask.
I try to hear a new voice. I sift through the memories, sift through the unfulfilled dreams. I consider what’s possible—and realize I don’t know what is possible. I pray. I pray for an easing of this grief, the ability to move forward. And I hear nothing, nothing at all.
“Just feel it. What do you want?”
I blink back tears and say, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
But life is not long. And I am tired of saying I don’t know. I don’t want to lose out on a happy future with a beautiful person because my present can’t get it together. I want a partner in this life. I don’t want to be stuck in my past.
It’s just that I was so very, very sure. I was so very, very much in love. For so long.
The voice says, And you still are.
But I can’t fix it. I can’t fix the situation alone. And I can’t seem to fix the voice that tells me maybe you can maybe you can maybe you can. I tell it that it is dead wrong, and it brushes me off, insists it is right, that its beliefs are as on target as ever.
It’s maddening.
I don’t know where to find a new voice to guide me. What’s a smart hunch? What is simply fear, creating walls?
I would like to begin again.
And so I do. I rise, every morning. I let the dogs out. I turn my back on the frantic old voice. It claws at me, demands to be picked up. It breaks my heart to ignore it, but it seems the only sane response. I try to remember to eat. I cry, still so many tears. The tears, the old voice tells me, are proof that it is right, that the marriage can and should be fixed before it is truly too late.
How the inner voice defines “too late” is anyone’s guess.
Old voice, buddy, you really need to go. You no longer serve me well.
I try to shove it aside when it gets too loud. I test my mind again, around shifting meds, and slowly take new freelance work. I love my girls as actively and powerfully and honestly as I can. I try to love myself, remember there is good in me, remember there is value here, in spite of all that has been lost, all that once defined me—all that I was once happy—thrilled, even—to have define me. I try to shed the grief, the shame, the confusion. I peek out of my shell, I try to help others, I try not to see the world as pure loss.
I am feeling my way, alone in this head and heart. This year, I am trying not to lean too hard, be a drain, on those around me. I feel like 2009 was the year of leaning. I want to stand up straight again, I want to take steps forward.
But it would help if I had an inner voice that’s not on the fritz.
And Whomever and Whatever you are, that I pray to? You really need to step up too. No offense. I know you’re hella busy. But, man, I really need a cosmic hand to hold, at least until my sight returns. I can’t see the horizon, and you bet I’m calling out your name. I think it may be bullshit, that You only give us what we can handle. The suicides are a pretty good indicator that sometimes, You pile on too much.
*****
New post up at Work It, Mom! Whatever you do, don’t look under the desk: http://www.workitmom.com/bloggers/singlemomatwork/2010/01/26/whatever-you-do-dont-look-under-the-desk/
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