All of the good movies start out with a narrator telling the story from the memories of their journal. My story may never be a movie, but maybe one day someone will want to read it.
I didn’t realize how lonely I was until this week when my friend cancelled her plans to ride with me into Birmingham. Gin had been in the hospital for a month by this time. She was finally released to go home, but not given the okay to go back to work. I was on Spring Break with my kids, Erin and Meg. I had to take Erin to the doctor and Gin had suggested that we all go together, being that she had some errand in the city herself. I was elated to have my friend ride with me for the visit. We used to meet frequently for coffee. Sometimes I would go to her house; sometimes she would come to mine. Other times we would meet up at the local diner. No matter where we were, we would sit and talk for hours.
On Monday before our Tuesday trip, Gin called to break our date. I was disappointed, but the real disappointment was that she couldn’t go because she had a friend coming over and there would be another friend over the next day to have coffee…my coffee. I was mostly affected because there was no reschedule. I was extremely let down. In the last month all of my adult conversations had either been fights with t-ball moms or insults being thrown at me from clients at work or my husband.
This was not the first time I had been let down by Gin. It won’t be the last. We have known each other for 30 years. I can remember a time that dates back before boys that she and I would call each other every day. We are like sisters. We go through periods when we hate each other then love each other again, but we have always been together. The idea of a day when there wouldn’t be the two of us sends me into fits of crying.
So there I was with no coffee date and no reschedule…not good for the ego. Felt like I had been put out in the rain. There was only one other time I felt this lonely. I had been dumped by my boyfriend because he knew he could not compete with the ghost of my airman. I would have moved heaven and earth for the airman. I never trusted any man as completely as I trusted him. I would have followed him to the end of the earth, and if he ever had to leave my side, I would have waited there in a blizzard for him to come back for me. With the boyfriend and the airman both gone, there was a void similar to the one Edward left when he left Bella in Forks. Only for me, this airman was my Jacob, my sun. He, Jacob, was the one who left, so I had no Jacob here to heal the pieces of my broken soul. Maybe he was my Edward because he left, but he was better than Edward. I was “imprinted” to him, and without him, I was lost. He was, in fact, my Jacob.
I looked for ways to fill the void. I tried hanging with a younger crowd. I felt young when I was with them, but they used me for the amenities I could obtain. I tried to hang with an older crowd, but felt used in that respect as well—I was good enough for a time, but not good enough for all the time. I forgot to really look the one place that was safe, the one place where I would truly be loved where there was no loneliness. I forgot to look UP.
Oh, I had tried praying, but my prayers were impatient. My heart was broken, and I couldn’t wait for it to heal. Of all the times to do right and sit and wait upon the Lord, this time of loneliness and sorrow was the time. I was too stubborn, to heart-broken, too much in a hurry. I wonder now what miracle would have taken place. I wonder what wonderful gift I might have missed out on.
This time around, though I am surrounded by people, I feel lonely. It is not only because of one canceled coffee date, but a myriad of different events that have brought pain to my existence. My husband of six years is –sexually at times, verbally at others, and most certainly emotionally—abusive. He doesn’t see that he is, and it has taken me six years to see it myself. The latest insult to injury came this week when he got right up in my face and said that his “dreams were telling me that you are fucking cheating on me.” A direct quote. I was prepared for anything but that, although I should have seen it coming—the questions demanding to know who I am talking to or where I was going, even after I had already told him—the paranoia was working overtime.
I was tempted this time, as I was the last to seek familiarity and don a certain grey flannel shirt that I had worn before. I ‘ve grown up since the last time I pulled that from my closet. I realize that this is not the season for flannel, that flannel would be comforting at first, but too warm in the end.
This time I decided that I would look UP. It’s hard looking up sometimes. There are clouds. Often the clouds pile up on each other then there are storms.
One of my favorite paintings is called “Tempest”. The massive storms brew over black waters. There on the shore looking over the rough seas is a maiden with long red tresses being tossed by the wind. Perhaps she is looking toward the sea for her love to return (no indication of the airman here…the airman would not come by sea ). The storm brewing on the ocean may be comparable to the waves crashing within her own heart.
I am not allowed to go to confession in my current state of non-grace, but were I able to go I would confess that my heart feels as black as those storms. I stay angry. I used to sing with my whole heart, not just my voice, but now there is no song in my heart. I long for the day when my tempest will die down, and maybe as I look up, I will be able to see a rainbow where the clouds used to be.
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