Things

I'm telling myself that I'm not going to cry.

Again.

I'm caught in a slow moving circle, every few hours feeling weighed down, pressing myself against the sobs, mostly managing to hold it in.

They beat me last night and I choked on my own tears, buried my face in the blanket.

Today has been better. Cried only once. Mostly I've been feeling the swollen pit of it in my stomach, turning sick with this weight, this worry, this anger. This sadness. But I only cried once. And that was only because I talked about it. Thought I could make it without my lip wobbling. But I couldn't.

Our world as we've known it has shifted, been pulled out from beneath us and left me grasping for anything for comfort. I've been telling myself that it's only an inconvenience, not a tragedy. And that the ache I'm feeling is that of change, of being forced out of a comfortable place, and not because it's the end of anything that really matters.

I tell myself these things: At least we have our health. At least we have our children and their health. At least we have family and a home and each other.

At least, at least, at least.

I didn't come here to tell the story again, I'm weary of repeating it, weary of it repeating itself over and over in my mind, feeling it hard and throbbing in my gut. I simply needed to come here for myself. To vent. To feel for a moment connected to something comfortable, something that I'm not letting go of.

I'm here because I'm exhausted and want to scream into ocean, let go of this burden, throw it out to sea and reel back in whatever is waiting to take its place.

But it's October in New England. And the ocean is a long cold drive away.