The Imperfect Practice

She had been living life cracked, unable to hold joy as it leaked out through the slivers in her heart.  It hadn't struck her before this moment - that she was unable to hold all of the joy in her life. She hadn't realized her heart was a sieve, letting much of the happiness of her days slip through.  Her heart was broken, perhaps more deeply and completely than she had imagined. Yes, it hurt nearly incessantly these days, but she had managed to keep going with a heart that was more breaks than body. Somehow, she was still alive and breathing. But she was in desperate need of repair - intentional, thoughtful, meaningful repair. For once, she needed to feel treasured not in spite of her breaks and flaws - but because of them.  While she longed to be loved as she was and where she was, it was not the time for that. It was the time for repair, recovery, and resolution.  It was time to illuminate her cracks, embrace her imperfections, and tell anyone who didn...

The path back is never easy. She was learning that more profoundly with each new day. It's one thing to earn trust the first time, but it's a completely different thing to earn trust after having systematically and thoroughly destroying it over the course of time. Even if it was unintentional.  But she knew that she could not hold his hand along the path. Holding hands requires trust, and that she had none of. Her heart was battered and bruised, and felt it could not take another hit. She was also tired - she felt as thought she had not only held his hand, but also carried him for far too long.  Besides, she had her own path to trod - and it was difficult enough. Some days, it seemed simple: handle the logistics. Do the things you have to do to stay alive and keep your shit together, in other words.  Then of course, there were days like today - where nothing fits and realizations come careening through the atmosphere, out of nowhere.   She made a mistake a...

They were everywhere,  Like ants stuck in a cosmic joke -  Paused mid-stride, Lines and lines of solar panels Crossing the expansive desert.  They stuck to their lines, As all good ants do. They did their job, As all good ants do.  Hour after hour, Day after day, Never any end in sight, Still they fulfilled their duty. Line by line, Row by row. Do they ever get bored? Will it ever get old?

She stretched her body slowly under the relentless heat of the midday summer sun. To say the heat was intense was an understatement - it was a hair's breadth from unbearable, but it was nothing compared to the heat that continued to burn inside of her.  She delicately massaged the edges of her swimsuit to expose her hip bones - she didn't really want to be completely naked under the sun, but the thrill of exposure combined with the grasp of sunlight on her bare skin was too much to resist.  The heat of the sun encapsulated and gripped her like a lover gone far too long who has spent too many nights fantasizing alone. The intensity forced her to arch her back, allowing the slight breeze to rush along her breasts and under the small of her back as beads of sweat glistened against an impeccably blue sky.  She twisted her hips as she arched, hoping to ease some of the tension coursing through them. The dark wicker of the chair burned into her side as she rotated - it hu...

Things had not gone as she had anticipated. Clearly, since he moved out the day after their conversation. He didn't even give them a chance to talk it through again... He had packed up his bags while she put their daughter down for a nap.  He gave her the silent treatment all day, until a work call pulled him away - and he said he was just going to stay with a friend. She was in complete shock. Yes, she had started the conversation and generated the idea - but she never envisioned it would become a reality.Was this going to be her new reality? Would he leave her forever? He had told her he was dead set against separating, but then he left. She asked him for ideas on a compromise, and his idea was for him to stay elsewhere. Her foundation, which was already cracked, began to dissolve like granite in acid.  Was she meant to be alone?  She was tired - so tired - of feeling like the bad guy all of the time. She was tired of the nagging, the sighs of disappointment, ...

She felt the car shake around her as she let the sobs overtake her. For a brief moment, she wondered what the people around her must be thinking. They'd all been stuck behind the same train for the last 15 minutes. She took a deep breath and tried to shove everything back down as she raised her head. Crying wouldn't fix anything, she knew that. And even if it might make her feel better in the moment, it felt like a waste of time. She had shit to get done. But her heart still hurt. It was still throbbing with a sharpness that comes with a sudden realization. Why wouldn't it just stop? Maybe she would find happiness again someday, maybe he would change. Maybe love would return, all the stronger for enduring the storm. If not, she could pretend to be happy. She could do it for her. She would bend heaven and earth for her.  But her heart was broken. Deeply. And she had no idea how to move forward. 

She felt so alone. So fucking alone. The type of alone  where you have a funny thought, but there's no one to share it with. Or you need to say something, but have no one to say it to. It was her own fault, she was sure of it. She broke her friends down by burdening them with too much of her reality and leaning too heavily on them for support. One by one, she broke them - unintentionally, of course. As soon as she realized what she was doing, she went full stop. But that left her with a very small pool of friends close enough to even consider talking to about all she was going through. And she didn't want to break anyone else... She separated herself from her family. Not in a definitive or even spoken way - she loved them all dearly. She just put some silence between she and everyone else. It was easy to do, since they were all spread out. She still leaned on her parents...they were really all she had left. She resented her partner and alienated him. She could not get p...