It is September already.  Somehow, we survived the summer.  11 weeks of cramming, racing, barreling through -- the result of me being in school full-time while Nova was out for the summer -- nearly did me in.  Thank goodness for Moms, and Tonys, and Aunties, without whom I could not have succeeded. One summer down, one more to go.

It’s taken me the entire past month to decompress, to find a new calm.  But just this week I caught myself singing a tune in the car on the way to class, tapping to the beat while waiting for the light to change.  It’s amazing how these little things can bring joy in the most mundane of moments. I delighted at my ability to sing again, to feel music in my body, to feel joy without cause.  

This in stark contrast to the hyper-focused, muscles-clenched, don’t-let-things-fall-apart mentality that I adopted to survive the summer.  It wasn’t by choice (necessarily), but it was my default. I kept dreaming of ways to do things differently, to be differently, but my patterns got the best of me.  Do, Achieve, Work, Stress, Push, Worry, Repeat.

I let relationships fall to the wayside.  I abandoned self-care.  My need to get every little thing just right, to have all the pieces securely locked into place, to outperform, to prove something, to achieve competence, and to also be loved by my daughter -- meant that there was nothing left for me, or anyone else.  About halfway through, I felt rather lonely. I wasn’t the person I wanted to be, and this affected my ability to authentically connect with the people I love. I was running a rat race that I had created, and I was running it alone.

Sitting here, on the other side, in a quiet house with my thoughts and a laptop, I ask:  
Why do we do this?  Where is the joy in pushing ourselves to the limit?  Why are we constantly competing, even when nobody’s watching?

Here is what I know:  When I die, I will not care about the accolades, or who I was able to impress, or even how successful my ventures were.  I will care about the people I loved, whether I loved them well enough, whether they knew it, and felt it. I will not care about how hard I worked but rather what and whom I worked hard for, that it was meaningful, and resonant.  I will wish that I hadn’t depleted myself as many times as I did, to achieve a false sense of security.  And I will be incredibly grateful to those who stood by me while I learned this lesson, perhaps more than once, because they are the only reason I care about this life after all.  Our people are everything.

Life is a constant barrage of trials and errors.  We will not do many things right, but we can use the gift of hindsight to do it better next time.  Never perfect -- just better.
​

​I just had a strong cry, the kind of cry that shakes you.  The silent kind, the one that takes hold of your body and surrenders it to the unbelievable truth:  Your love is dead.

I had been writing about George.*  Our first months together, in particular the afternoon I went to him to “end things” and ended up under his covers instead.  That afternoon I needed not so much to break up with him, but to tell him:  I know I’m going to break your heart, and I’m sorry.

But that never happened.  Who broke whose heart?

George, my sweet George, it has been almost 3 years and I still ask myself this question:  
Where have you gone?  
How could you have left this world so suddenly, so easily, so spotlessly?

Poof.  And you were gone.  
Poof.  And my life was to go on without you.  
Poof.  Life would never be the same again.

When I think of you like this -- these memories, recreating their image, placing my body back in time with yours, allowing myself to feel you, to recall the details; what we wore, how you smelled, the sound of your voice; the way you spoke to me, softly and with certainty; the way your eyes lit up, the way you closed them when I touched your hair; it is all so familiar to me still, and that surprises me, and I am grateful.  I fear the day when I will no longer remember.  When the words on these pages will be my only way in.

The interesting thing about a cry like this is that, while gripping and painful and seemingly unbearable, it brings a notable sense of relief:  I have not forgotten you, I have not moved on from you, I still feel for you, I still love you.  

You mean something to me.  
​
It was not all a dream.


*I am writing again.  It is the same book, and it is a different book.  Stay tuned for updates.

I had an epiphany today.

The George I have been holding onto is gone.  He is free in the purest sense.  He has no desire or attachment.  Not for any of us, and not for this human life.  He cares for me, but this relationship is largely out of balance.  It’s like the movie Her, except George is not an operating system, he is a soul spirit.  

In my dream he was telling me that it is time for my heart to let him go.  That it is futile for me to continue holding him so near, for he hasn’t the capacity to reciprocate.  Though I have often felt closer to George since his death, it is impossible to determine how much of that is a true deepening of our love, and how much of that I have fabricated to satisfy my longing and disappointment, to cope with the reality that our relationship, as I knew it, is over.  

It makes no sense for me to consider him the way I used to consider him.  I know only a fraction of him now.  Human George loved me, and human George died.  Spirit George is an entirely different entity, and he belongs to no one.

​Tonight George feels more like a man who is leaving me, than my love watching over me.  This is another kind of heartbreak.  It stings.  And it sets me free.