I have spent the better part of the last few days continuing my archaeological dig through belongings that have grown burdensome. There is the requisite junk to discard, of course, but each layer I unearth reveals evidence of a life stalled out some time ago: drawings left undone, courses never completed, writing that died halfway across the page. There are snapshots of smiling people long gone from my life. There are journal entries — hundreds of them — full of neuroses and insecurity and sadness. There are love letters from once promising days of lightness and discovery since turned cloudy and disillusioned. These artifacts piled up in drawers and boxes for years and now spill out around me, all these notebooks and files filled with so much promise unrealized.
I feel like a malformed phoenix, damaged and unable to ever truly rise from the ashes each time she burns. I look to the new year ahead and wonder: will this year be any different?
Bags and boxes of donations and trash are stacked near the door, ready to be cleared out of my life for good. I looked at it and was again in a dream: I had seen it before as I slept, a vision of me clearing out my home, bringing order to chaos, and finally facing the skeletons rattling mercilessly in my closet. I was not alone — my love was in the apartment, washing dishes in his dress shirt and tie. I was half-dressed and dirty, and mortified that he would see me that way I ran crying to the bedroom. There, I cleared off all the stuff getting in the way of the bed in one clean movement and sobbed uncontrollably when I turned to the closet and found that he had already seen it: everything I had ever hidden away was gone and replaced by his clothing hung neatly on the rod. I was certain he would leave after seeing me so very hideous and low; instead, he handed me a towel and lead me to the bathroom to clean up. He grinned and said he wasn’t going anywhere. The boxes by the door were gone.
I had forgotten about that dream.
I still love the man so neatly dressed at my dream-sink, gently laughing away my fears and undressing me for my bath. He will never be mine, not in the way I long for him to be, and I know this; I have known it. Yet I could not walk away, could not tear myself from this note of warmth and beauty with a mind so fierce and finely honed and a heart so deeply wounded and distrustful. He let me in and in I fell, Alice in Wonderland, down the rabbit hole. There was never enough time for all the words sent and spoken to cover the distance between us; when together, not nearly enough to take in his dancing eyes and his touch. Despite confessions whispered at midnight in the quiet shadows of the park — confessions of a decision questioned and of visions dreamed — I know better than to hope.
So I have walked away. I am a bit down on love right now, to be sure.
I colored my hair — it’s kind of stripey, but in a good way. I fed my plants as they were on the brink of death yet again. I endured another painfully silent holiday dinner with my family. I am a bit bleary but trudging on: I recognize that any spiritual or emotional unburdening will require far more than trash bags and a broom to achieve.
Much love.
cheers–
anna
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