Hurting: 2017 Style

I’m hurting right now.  Deeply.  Hurt comes in many forms.  You can be physically hurt.  You can have your pride hurt.  In my case, my heart is hurting.  Some might say why even write this blog?  Aren’t all of your blogs about hurting and loss?  On a basic level, yes but this is different.  I’m feeling a new level of hurt.  One I’ve never felt before.  I only share this with you – whomever you are – to maybe let you know you’re not the only one out there who’s hurting.  This is where I’m at as of Feb 18th, 2017.

Part I

I think just about every kitchen sink is underneath a window.  Mine is no different.  On the ledge she would typically plant herbs, an aloe vera plant… things like that.  I don’t remember where we got her, I’m thinking it was a Dollar Tree, but she has always stood in the window ready to dance at the first flicker of sunlight.  The click clack sound of her shaking hips and arms echoes in my head.

The day Mary moved out, this little solar powered hula girl stopped her dancing.  I took it apart to find out what was wrong.  I couldn’t find anything.  I cleaned the little solar screen to see if that would make a difference.  Nothing.  It just stopped.  I guess there was no more reason to dance.  The song was over.  The sun, a little dimmer.

I don’t use the basement very much these days.  I used to though.  I have some of my amplifiers, my piano, a couch, some books and a few of my records down there.  It looks pretty much the same since we set the room up to be shown for the open house 11 months ago.  Untouched.  There’s a fine layer of dust on everything in the room.  Left behind on the middle shelf of my bookcase are the two dice we got at an antique store next to the World Famous Coffee Cup in Boulder City, Nevada.  I’m sure if I moved them, there’d be two squares in the dust left behind.  A memory.

Mary’s kept her word.  She’s not spoken to me since the first part of September.  I don’t blame her.  I get it.  I honestly don’t know if or when I will get to speak to her again.  I’ve reached out.  It’s a deep wound that will never heal.  To spend 17 years with someone, to hear their voice everyday – then to come to a full stop is not something I was prepared for.  There’s been a lot I haven’t been prepared for.  I learn more and more everyday.

To say I miss her is an understatement.  She is a good woman who will be an amazing partner to the luckiest man on the planet whomever he is and whenever she decides to chooses one.  While I know I’ll never have closure and this wound will never fully heal, time does continue to move on.  Last night as I looked out of my bedroom window and onto the backyard, for the first time since the first snowfall of this winter’s season on the 29th of November, the soft glow of the solar lights from Mary’s garden were shining once again.  It’s a sign but I’m not sure of what just yet.

Part II

I gave my heart to someone.  Someone who I rolled the dice on and lost.  I can’t talk about it.  It’s too raw and while I should talk about it, I can’t.  There was too much for her to risk to be with me.  I get that.  With everything that’s went on, I’ve known for a long time now that I’d be leaving North Dakota this year.  I really wanted to leave on my own terms.  We would say our goodbyes, cling to what we shared, remember the amazing times and be hopeful for the distant future.  A guy can dream right?

I had no idea that in a moment of an alcohol-induced evening, she would complete break my heart.  Shattered.  A moment that makes me question my own self-worth.  My value.  A moment that may have not meant anything to her meant everything to me.  A moment of promises broken and things meant to be special, made special no more.  Maybe karma paying me a visit.

This is a hurt unlike any other.  The deepest.  A slow dance where you find yourself looking into the eyes of the one you love so deeply, listening to the soft words of “I love you” while they slowly shove the knife deep in your chest – never breaking eye contact, continuing to slowly spin on the dance floor now covered in my own blood.  That kind of hurt.

While I’m ultra sensitive, and I know that I am, I can be tough.  I can take a lot – and have.  But this one… this one may take me down.  It’s one thing if you don’t really care about the other person, but it’s total devastation when you do.  All you can say to yourself is “not you…. why you… of all people to break my heart, why you…?”  And then, as if the actual event wasn’t terrible enough, to carry on and act like nothing happened the next day?  I don’t know how to process that.  How does a person do that?  Is that an internal protection mechanism that kicks in to protect themselves from what they actually did – and how what they did affected or devastated others?  This is why people drink – to numb themselves from actually feeling.

It makes me question if how I feel, what I think or recognizing what I’ve sacrificed is even considered at all.  What does that make me to them?  What is my worth?  Worthless?

The only thing I have left in my life is music.  I will spend however many days, weeks or years I have left making music.  Be it writing, sharing or playing – I will give myself to the creativity, the expression and the making of music.  I wrote a song last night.  It’s not the best song.  It’s not sung the greatest.  It’s not played the best.  But it’s my song.