Feeling it All

I haven’t rearranged the furniture. I haven’t started making the bed.

The coffee maker sits in the same place on the counter.  The t.v. turns on the same way.

Their clothes still hang in the closet. Their toys still litter the floor.

 

But things are missing now. There is less laundry, fewer groceries to buy.

Their bodies do not occupy their childhood beds every night.

Their absence makes my heart grow lonelier.

 

People say to trust our gut. My gut has been ripped wide open so many times in the last few years.

My mind and heart tried to betray it over and over it…

But that was ridiculous because neither could complete the task.

 

And now, on the days that are important, when I am not with them, it’s like a stabbing has occurred.

Or someone punched me, right where it hurts.  Right in that open, wounded gut.

And the pain barely subsides.

 

I want to fly, I want to break free of these feelings that cause me to curl up and cry.

I want to soar through the wind with a lightness like I haven’t known in so long.

I want to feel my shoulders down instead of always up, tense.

 

I need to trust and believe and know.

But I don’t, but I do, but I don’t.

This constant pulling and tugging, like a rubber band, that may eventually snap.

 

I look at them and know there is a reason.

I hear them and realize how fast they are growing, always.

I feel for them as they navigate all of this from a different place than myself.

I want to protect them from all the pain.

 

But I cannot do that, no matter how hard I try.

I will lead them as we trudge through the muck together.

And when we are apart I will cleanse myself of the old and look forward to the new,

until we can all do it.

 

And every moment of every day I will feel it all because that is what I do.

That is who I am.

And I am done denying it.