She laid there, exhausted. She was currently always exhausted. She glanced at the clock, at the wineglass on top of it, and groaned. Drinking wine in a bed on the floor was the only time she found stillness these past two weeks. So much had been done, had to be done, loomed around her waiting to be done. But that bed, on the floor, in the middle of an empty room, was the perfect place to sit, exhausted, at the end of the day and drink a very full glass of wine.
The packing was done. Her life, the kids' lives, all in boxes that were taped and labeled and waiting to be unopened in a new place. Twelve years of living in a house purged, donated, and boxed over the past ten days. She was exhausted. His life, well, what he had left behind, lay strewn in open boxes in the dining room. She wasn’t sure what he wanted to take, to toss. He wasn’t there when she was packing. When was he ever there? Friends had helped her box, fed her, listened to her, and poured her wine as they busied themselves in her kitchen, the garage, the attic. A house was too much for one person to pack. Especially when she was just exhausted.
She knew she needed to get up but she felt glued to the bed. Two more minutes. Two more and she’d move and start the coffee and start the day. The last things crammed in their bags and the animals captive in a room so that they wouldn’t escape during the commotion of feet and voices moving and shouting. She was too old to have friends moving her, but they offered and she was just so tired. Yes, please, she had said. I am just exhausted, she had said. They had said of course she was, smiled while their eyes looked sad, asked what else did she need?
It was a lot to go to work, to stand there and try to teach a room of students. Often, they had to ask her the same question two or three times until she heard them. Sorry, she would say, I am just tired today. “Late night, huh, Miss?” they’d laugh and she’d say “I wish” and laugh with them for a minute until the smile felt weird on her face and fell.
It was a lot to hold her kids at night and tell them it was all going to be okay. They definitely did not believe her and she wasn’t so sure she believed herself right now. Their anger, their confusion was too much to look at and their sadness made her not want to get out of bed.
Shit, she needed to get out of bed. She moved to sit and as she looked around this bare room remembering the first time they had spent the night in it. No curtains, no blinds, a wall of open windows, and a night sky that seemed endless. Their time here seemed like it would be endless as well.
She felt the tears, not in her eyes, but only when they escaped and pooled over onto her face. She pushed herself up but then sat back down. She didn’t want to do today crying, but she could. She could do a lot while crying. So much in fact she looked for her journal and a pen. She needed to write this down, to remember all the things she could do while crying. Maybe if she wrote things down, they would get out of her head. She sat up straighter and began scratching out the truths that she knew all too well.
You know how to do this. You remember the weighted sensation of your heart as it sinks to the very bottom of your chest. You know that pressure that makes your lungs constricted and your breath is limited. You know how to do this.
Your head is like a vise and your eyes leak. You wipe the moisture away from your face and realize you didn’t even know you were crying. You think you will always be crying. Your sinuses ache and your nose runs and you don’t care. All you know is that crying makes it better, makes it worse, makes others uncomfortable, and you don’t care. You are so fucking sick of crying and yet you say you don’t care.
You don’t care about much. You try to eat because your stomach tells you that you are hungry, but your stomach is a liar. You aren’t hungry. The smallest amount of food makes you cramp and ache and feel full. People tell you stories and you react properly but you have no idea what they are talking about. Maybe later you will see you did laugh at the right time or make the right sounds. Maybe you forget it even took place.
You wish you could forget a lot that took place. You wish the day could be like the two minutes it takes to wake up where everything has been forgotten and nothing hurts and your chest is not heavy. But it’s not. You wake up and remember. Your body takes over before your mind catches up. You stand up and gravity has never been more real. You step heavily on feet that can barely inch across the floor. Your shoulders are too much for your frame and you stoop, head bowed, spirit forgotten about; left in the bed for tomorrow’s two minutes.
You dress, you brush your teeth, you smile and nod. You can do a lot while crying. You do your job, you try to do your job, you do something. You are here. You are physically in this room yet taking up so little of it. Your voice is a whisper because it is being choked by memories, by wishes, by what you thought would happen.
You are afraid to open your mouth. Afraid a torrent of words will come out and splash onto the floor and make puddles so wide and deep you will never get back. Because there is no back. There is just here and here is painful. Here cuts. Here hacks and tears and bleeds. Here shreds and you lay eviscerated, emptied, and scarred.
You let your heartbeat and twist and squeeze within your chest. You let your eyes drift off into space because if they drift into your head, you will start crying again and you are so fucking sick of crying. But you remember this. And if you remember this, then that means that you have survived this. And if you have survived this before, surely you can survive it again. You know how to do this.
She took one final look at her words, wiped her eyes, and said “You know how to do this”. There was coffee to be made and kids to wake up and last-minute things to do. She was exhausted, but she could do this. She had to do this. She knew how to do this.
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