Sickness and love...

Oh my.

I got so sick, this week. I was sick like a little kid, crying at night on the bathroom floor.

In reading Torch by Cheryl Strayed, a fictionalized account of the death of her mother, and hearing the sad news about the passing of Susan Neiber, I've been thinking a lot about sickness and what it would be like to understand that you were going to die.

It's inspiring, really, and it's hard. It's hard to know people and to love them. It's hard to be touched by beautiful people, because someday, somebody is going to leave before we're ready. Love is perilous, if it's true and honest. That kind of love is unending, even when our lives aren't.

I can't imagine how it would feel to die, not with how much I love my children and husband. Not with how many more things there will always be to see.

It makes me want to see it all, now. It makes me want to shake myself out of this funk.

I've been feeling like my life has been boxed up and marked with a sticker. I've been feeling like I'm missing the point, like this sort of existence is pointless. Like I want to spend all of my time growing things and making things and being with my loved ones.

There are a lot worse things we could be, though, than busy and in debt. There are a lot worse things I could be than missing somebodies who are still here with me. Maybe it will never feel good that we're crowded out of the life we dream of living, but maybe that doesn't matter so much as long as we love the parts that ARE like we dream.

On Monday, I was feeling blue. Kurt sent me an email that didn't say anything. It just contained these pictures.

I knew what he meant. I knew that he was saying that it's hard not to be able to be together, like we used to be. It's hard having things and caring for the girls and getting the car fixed and spending all of our money. But, somewhere deep inside of everything, at the very bottom, we're still two kids who love each other forever.

That same day, he sent me a text that said:

I don't know what this means, but I feel like crushing you. I feel physically tense and I wish that I could... press you. I feel like tugging on your hair and pressing your skin. I feel like gripping you and crushing my mouth against yours. I feel like pinning you beneath me and keeping you there, somewhere dark. You drive me fucking crazy, honey. You're a spitting electric wire and there's nothing I can do about you. I want to strap you to something stationary somewhere dark. I'll talk louder than you and lock the door. I'll push myself against you. I don't know what.

Nobody has ever known what to do for me and my bouts of sadness. I think that this is the nicest and most right thing anybody has ever said to me.


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