So I have begun the mind-bending exercise of wondering how my dead husband would be dealing with life if our roles had been reversed and he was the one who survived me.
I have been caught in a dysphoric mania, ultra-ultra rapid cycling with depression all day,
working a full day with a full staff and a full store and less bandwidth than I can afford.
I am driving and it is night and it is dark and it is foggy and it is misting and the road is fast and usually this scares the shit out of me but tonight it isn’t tonight I just want to get home.
Why can’t I get up.
why can’t I just get up.
It lifts for a little bit, a little while.
then
it is as if I have taken an enormous swallow of pain
Inhaled lungsful of death
A huge blackness fills me, empties me
My eyes grow wide, wider still
tears filling them, pooling, overrunning them
splashing my glasses
running hot down one cheek
then the other
I just have to make it home.
Home.
Thirty-seven minutes of this
around and around and
around.
Home.
Sitting in my car, engine running, music on
anything to drown out the noise in my head but nothing is enough.
smoke. ease the knots enough to feel just how tightly my core is clenched.
my entire body feels as if it is collapsing in on itself, shoulders slumping, spine curving
jaws tight, the only things moving are my eyes and thumbs.
the smoke is taking hold, finally
i can lower my shoulders
remove my tongue from the roof of my mouth
breathe in
and out.
finally.
The Salty Widow 