Up until this point I figured I was ready to head back to routine. Fall. Working. That weird space between Thanksgiving and Christmas when you are existing between turkeys and decorations and fitting in a little Halloween fun and shopping for gifts and mostly trying to keep warm.
I have struggled to write while Ben is home. Having very little luck. I sleep less when he's home and tend to fight more to get the standard household chores done. Part of his time off involved casting aside responsibility and demands for doing absolutely nothing at all.
And then tonight he says he had the best break ever and I trumped him and broke myself.
I don't want him to return to work. I don't want to miss him. I don't want to go back to feeling like I am alone in the world and counting the hours until he returns to me safe and sound. I want to keep him here so I can throw myself into his arms whenever I want for a kiss or a hug. So I can make him lunch and wake him up. So I can be with him.
Time is so short. I don't care if you get it. I get it and I don't like it. And weirdly the whole episode of winter without him only served to make me more clingy and less capable. Sure I can do what needs to be done but I don't want to. I will scream in fear as I'm doing it and shut my eyes tightly and when it is over for the moment the tears will come. Relief. Frustration. Agony. Pick something. Pick nothing. I get annoyed when people infringe on our time. I am sad when the evening ends and we have to sleep at last. I am frustrated that he has to go back to real life because I'm not finished spending time with him yet in this fantasy world where our days are our own.
I am always stopped short just as I settle in. I am always left behind in the grand scheme of things, with a map I can't read and directions I can't seem to follow. What is crystal-clear to others is a confusing jumble to me written in another language. I can't do this. I can't exist in the present and I can't plan for the future. I can't read this compass because it's spinning. Spinning wildly from N to E to S and back again, twitching onto W and becoming a blur as the hot sting of tears push out from under my eyes once more. You can tell me I'm approaching foolish but interestingly enough you can't point me back toward common sense.
It isn't even on the map. They lied.
Ben is traveling by memory and I am following him by heart.
