Who is that women in the mirror?
I think I know her. Yes I do. It’s me. The women whose husband died. Yes, he died. He left me. Left me to pick up the pieces. One by one. Day by Day. Week by Week. Month by Month. Year by Year.
I see the pain in her face. It’s in the lines around her eyes, it’s in the lines around her mouth. She is hollow. She doesn’t see. She only see emptiness. The eyes tell it all. The eyes tell the story. A story you do not want to hear. A story that you do not want to be part of. A sad story. A never-ending story.
Going through the motions?
You get up. You shower. You get your coffee. A coffee that used to be sitting for you on the bathroom sink when you got out of the shower. It’s no longer there. That cup is forever gone. You have to get your own cup of coffee. It doesn’t taste the same. It’s bland. It’s just a cup of dark muddy water. But you drink it anyway. Because you need it. You need it to get you going. To get you through your daily routine.
You are on autopilot. You shower, you do your hair, you put your make up on, you dress, and you get in your car and drive to work. You do the same thing every day. Day after day. Only to realize that you don’t remember doing it because you are on autopilot. You are going through the motions.
Monkey mind!
The monkey is there. The thoughts that consume your mind. Going around and around in a circle like a tornado, only to never stop. You think of the past, you think of what happened, you ask questions, you think of the future. What future? You don’t want to go there, you don’t want to see it “The future?” What is it? You can’t comprehend it? A dark empty place. A place where you can’t think.
The mind. It plays tricks on you. Why can’t you go to a good place?
I forgot how to breathe!
What? What do you mean, you forgot how to breathe. Yes, sometimes I forget how to breathe, only to catch my breath. It should be so simple, so easy, it’s part of being alive. It’s natural. Not for me sometimes. It gets stuck in my throat. I gasp. I have to calm myself down and tell myself “just breath”, until the craziness in my soul finally calms down and I am relaxed enough to breathe. Something so simple can be so hard. Just breathe.
The pain in your chest!
It all comes back to the breath. The pain in your chest. It’s like someone is stepping on your chest and you can’t breathe. It’s there, that dark cloud, the evilness. Never to go away. Some days it’s not so painful. Some day’s it hurts so bad that you can’t imagine the pain. It hurts, it’s painful, it’s in your soul, so deep it goes to the core of your soul. To that place where you want it to go and never come back up. It’s lurking, for its moment to slam you, so hard that you fall to your feet.
Mending a broken heart!
How do you mend a broken heart that has been shattered in a million pieces? You don’t. There is not enough glue on this earth to fill in those broken pieces or glue them back together. It’s impossible. You can put a band-aid on it, but the broken pieces are still broken, never to be repaired. It goes into infinity and beyond. That place never to be touched again.
When your heart has been shattered from the first time, only to be shattered a second time (from a second relationship) the only thing you can ask yourself is “How do you break an already shattered heart”? You can’t break something that has already been broken. You are broke, you are defeated, you are destroyed.
That place!
Where is that place? That place where you think you are safe? I don’t know where it is? I have been there for so long, I have physically lost my place. I’m here, just suspended in time, just looking. Where am I looking? I’m not sure. I can’t move. I can’t go forward.
The sounds in my head
It sounds like a freight train. The rumble under my feet. The movement that my feet feel, it’s getting closer and closer. It makes me nervous. What is it? Is it fear? It can’t be heartache…. heartache already came and stayed, and it stayed way too long. It’s like a friend of mine, a friend I don’t like. I want her to leave, but she doesn’t.
I reach out and I can’t touch her!
She stands over there on the other side of the tracks and just watches me. She say’s nothing, she just looks. And, I look back… at her. No words were spoken, just looking and watching and listening to the sounds in my head. What does she want? I reach out and I can’t touch her. Is she real or is she my imagination? She looks real, she looks like me. It is me.
The third party in a world of couples!
Yes, that is me. I am the 3rd one, the 5th one, and 7th one. I am alone in a world of couples. They are all together and then there is me. The 3rd one and so forth. How did I become that extra person in a world of two, four and six? Am I the long lost soul? Am I the person who they need to fix? Take care of? Make sure I am included? Yes, that is me. The 3rd one in the group. The one without a partner.
Going home!
The drive home. The long drive home from work. Going home. The drive gets longer and longer. You do it every day. The same drive, the same streets, the same way. And, when you get home, it slams you. You are now home. You are now home alone.
I am looking at that women in the mirror and I can see her so plain as day. It’s me. The women whose husband has died. The women he left. The women who has to pick up the pieces, one by one until she can’t pick them up anymore. Yes, I am that women in the mirror.
Written by Leslie Bachman
Beautifully written and stated, I feel it all. Thank you for sharing.
Wow! Yes, yes, yes. All of it and then some. I love this. Thank u for expressing what is so often felt but not said