Then.It.Just.Stops!
You're back to wondering what is going on? It feels like you're in a freeze frame of slow motion except everything around you, maybe, is still moving at a lightning speed? Maybe I'm in Dorothy's house, while the tornado of the world is outside my window, spinning madly around me. Yah. Maybe that is what is happening.
I am not sure where I am going to land. Or, at this point, if I ever will.
Maybe it's because I recently had my birthday. (which was fabulous, by the way) Or maybe not. Maybe it's because birthdays force us to think of our births...and the woman responsible for my birth is not here. The woman I originated from, of whom I am practically a twin of--no longer exists on this earth.
In a few days, it will be Mother's Day. Another reminder of who I thought I was, a mother, but realize, is only one aspect of who I am. Also a reminder of what I am missing. Mother's Day is the most crowded day at the cemetery. I try to avoid going, if possible. I couldn't be a mother if it weren't for my kids. I am blessed to have them. I wouldn't be a mother if it weren't for my husband either. For whatever that is worth--even if only to me.
On the other side of my birth...is the paternity of it all. A sudden surprise, bigger than the party they threw me?...a man I can remember meeting when I was nineteen...or maybe twenty. I know I was already married, though my husband was not there when we met. I don't remember where he was, but I wish he would have been there. I really wish he had been there. Oldest was a newborn.
I met him but I don't remember saying much, if anything. He and my mother spoke to each other, while I stood there awkwardly, silent, like a little girl trapped in my grown body. They spoke of me, of my existence, of my coming into being, into their lives, though I was standing right next to them...once again invisible.
I couldn't really tell you what he looked like. I knew he was fair skinned, like me. Eyes. Where my blue eyes came from? He held my son, for a dance. That was it. I never expected or imagined anything beyond that.
But here we are. Surprise! I'm not the little girl I was when he first met or left me. I am not nineteen or twenty...the age of my mom, when he left her? The age he was when I was born?
I just turned forty. I've had a dad all my life. In my life. I am his daughter.
But he wants to call me his daughter, when we meet...again. Again, my husband isn't here. That's strange isn't it? I wonder why this is, that he isn't here for this. I really wish he was here, this time.
I know what he looks like now. In this cyber-age of technology, I can click on his picture whenever I want. It doesn't tell me much though. Not really. I'm not even sure of what I want to know. Can you really express forty years of a life-time in an email? Is it even worth the effort at this point?
I want to believe it's worth everything. Maybe if we just start now. Working forward and not backward. I do not know. I don't have any great answers. I don't even have great questions anymore.
I think the house I'm in, that was spinning through the air, just landed.
I think, maybe, the journey home, starts now.
