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| My version of "The Thinker." |
I woke up in my own bed this morning and realized that the night passed without incident. No strange noises to obsess over, no sudden jolts that break the spell, no random thoughts to groan about. It was all good.
My hair is wet from a fresh shower and I'm sitting with a cup of coffee. I could sit this way for hours, still and content, and only get up for a refill. Somewhere in the house my kids are occupying their time with markers and a pad of paper, making signs for their "pets" (aka stuffed animals) and the zoo they are trying to create. Their sounds are muffled but I can tell that they are getting along famously.
In the afterglow of my trip, I am oddly peaceful. It doesn't feel quite right, but why tempt fate with suspicion? When Dave asked me last night if I learned anything, I laughed. Learn anything, no. Throw my hands up in defeat, yeah. I did that. And when that happened, everything clicked.
Sitting on a beach with a good friend and a damn good cocktail can summon the philosopher in anyone. In Montauk, I was Socrates in a bathing suit. And while I was there, it dawned on me that I was being too hard on myself.
I am grieving not only the loss of my Mom but the loss of my way of life before she passed away. Everything is mostly the same, and yet there's this sense of a falseness. It's a miasma that permeates the little things, from writing work related emails to talking with my husband about the minutiae of our daily lives. And the more I try to control it and make it go away, the more it affects me.
So today I will sit still and let the world affect me. I'll sit in the backseat for a while and ask someone to take me for a ride, maybe play some bad 80's music and cruise under the elevated subway tracks in the land of my youth.
I can't be afraid of whatever lies ahead in life, just because I can't control it.