This is not the story...

I just got Laura Munson's new book, This is Not the Story You Think It is, in the mail today. I'd read her essay some time ago, and even wrote her a note recently to congratulate her about the book. She told me to never give up my writing. I'm trying...I wish I could believe I was writing myself out of my heartache, as she did, although her story does have a happy ending. I'm not really seeing my own at the moment. Sometimes it feels like my story only gets sadder, even though I am trying to let my 'alter ego' take more control of it.

It's been a tough couple of days; I'm not sure why. I simply get to this place. After reading the intro to Laura's book, and noting that she and I have MANY of the same books on our bedside tables, I can't help but wonder how one really DOES get to 'the end of suffering.' She says it happens in a blink, and I can believe that, but I haven't blinked it yet. Sometimes I wonder if I even want to really; perhaps I've gotten so used to suffering that it feels like a comforting blanket to me. Wouldn't it be cold without the blanket? As Evangeline, I've been exploring going barefoot in the kitchen; Electra, on the other hand, wears shoes and socks all the time, sometimes even in the heat of summer. No wonder she can't let go of the blanket.

How do you find happiness and an 'end to suffering' when you've lost the love of your life? Not 'might' lose him, but really really already lost him--to someone else. To someone he loves more, feels safer with, was willing to give up a fifteen year marriage to 'be' with, possibly even to marry. How is it possible not to want it back, not to suffer? I completely agree with Laura that it's the 'unattached' state that allows peace to be present, I just have no idea how to 'blink' that state into existence.

Unfortunately it feels like right now the only thing I can do is sit with the pain. The irony is, sometimes he sits with me. He doesn't have to do that, and I have to give him credit for taking the time. I'm sure ultimately it will help me forgive. But mostly it just makes me miss him all the more, and feel all the more lonely when he's gone, and want him back. And I'm not supposed to want... Yet maybe wanting is just part of the mourning journey. As much as I'd like it to be, the new day still hasn't dawned.