Life On The Otherside

I couldn’t help but see.

He was in red. Red sweatshirt. Red shorts. Jordan shoes.

Just standing off to the corner, pulling on his hair.

High.

The type of high you’re not sure if they’ll ever come back down.

For a split second, I saw you.

I saw my husband.

Just like you, he has a family. People who love him so much and want him home.

Safe. Sober.

Hearing about it would sink my heart deeper into my chest. “Why didn’t you invite me?”

“Oh, it was last minute. We really didn’t plan it.”

I remember going through a check list. Of every repulsive thing about me. The mirror silently agreeing with the confirmed loneliness I experienced.

How off putting I found myself to be.

“Why would she do that?”

“Was she just settling?”

“She rushed into it so quick”

“She just wanted to be married. Anybody would do.”

They don’t know honey. But I do. I know that laugh that was enough to break every wall inside of me down. That smile, infectious, contagious, like a warm bath consuming me all at once. I know that feeling of falling asleep on your chest, listening to your heart beat rhythmically. I know the sound of I love you coming from your lips. I know the ease of your voice, like floating down a river. My mind placed me in Grand Rapids, but your voice pushed me to gentle streams. I know my home.

“She’s crazy. Desperate. Doesn’t know her own worth”

I would do it all again. To share just a few short months with you for a memory of love that will last a lifetime. Painful and tragic. The experience of loving you was worth every shaking sob on the bathroom floor.

I learned for the first time how to love and to love well. To love knowing nothing would be returned. To love for better or for worse.

I’d fold our laundry for the rest of my life.

I’d never ask for you to lift a finger.

I’d never again huff when I came home to find them still in the dryer.

I’d never again make accusations of unwillingness, irresponsibility, or unreliability.

I wish I could sit on the couch and fold our laundry while you tell me about your day.

Every time I go to fold our son’s clothes. I’m reminded of what an honor it is, what a joy it holds, to have somebody to clothe.

No.

I suspect neither of these best describe what I now experience.

Is there a description of it?

I suppose it’s waking up sober. Grabbing my son and kissing him good morning.

I suppose it’s watching him smile at me and giggle as I try to dress him.

I suppose it’s a quick pang in my chest when I realize I’m the only one here. That I can’t ask you to watch the baby as I pack our bags for the day.

It’s a deep ragged bone shaking breath at the emptiness in my house. When did my home go to a house? When did the warmth leave?

February 19th.

As I pack my son in the car and breathe in, I feel the weight of what the day holds and quickly let the fear settle.

Peace I believe is the absence of debility.

The ability to continue despite the begging respite.

Some may define this as resilience. Some as courage.

Strength, maybe.

To me, it’s peace.

Peace with the environment. Peace within myself. I don’t have to carry the weight of the responsibility. God does.