I mean, look at him.We went on a date tonight. I agreed to drive since he’s underage and all and when I picked him up he had a lovely yellow sparkly card for me. Yellow. Of course. And inside the card, he thanked me for taking him on a date and told me that he loves me.

Like I said, my life is rich.

He also informed me that he wanted to get me flowers, but unfortunately ran out of time. Understandable. He had a very busy day of slip and slides and play-making, from what I heard over dinner tonight. And really, it’s the thought that counts. Well, at least in this case, anyway.

We went to Ollie’s favorite restaurant and had some amazing Vietnamese food. And then had some ice cream at Friendly’s, which is always perfect, if you ask me. We also saw a baby bunny eating some grass outside and how hilarious this sentence would be if I swopped out eating for smoking.

But hugs, not drugs, baby bunny!

It was an altogether adorable night and I think I might love one-on-one time with people I love more than anything else.

And yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking with a man named Larry on the phone about buying a certain bedroom set that I never do want to see again. We were talking about addresses and what his ETA might be to pick it up when all of the sudden he started talking me through it. What? I know, that’s how I felt too. He was telling me that he had been divorced, too. TOO. You know, me and Larry. So much in common. And that he had gotten through it. And then he told me that he’d pray for me and that’s real nice, it really is, but it’s bad enough getting random Larrys out and about buying your bed, but when they start praying for you too…Well, let’s just say that’s when you’re like, yep. this is my life. take a nice inhalation because this is what it smells like–larry praying for you.

And nope, I am not an ounce above Larry’s prayers.

But seven months ago my life didn’t look quite so much like it was in such obvious need of prayer by total strangers who are buying my bed. Not a complaint, though; just an observation. And I am not crying or anything; I actually think it’s kind of funny.

Oh, and tonight I got home to a quiet and dark house. This might sound creepy, but I kind of like it. Because there was the piano, all begging to be played and it was like, you spend all day with kids and they make you necklaces out of gimp and you wear them! and yet you’re gonna just walk on by…?

So I was like, You’re right, piano. And if you made me a necklace out of gimp, I’d wear it too.

So I sat down and played and then I decided to play a ballad that I wrote for the play my brother wrote that he asked me to turn into a musical by way of adding tunes. And if you are an editor, please, have yourself a field day with that terrible sentence.

And there was one song in particular that strikes a chord with me. Jason emailed me, asking me if I would have a very hard time writing a sad song for Esther to sing; that this song should be something about how Xerxes (which happens to be Drew’s screen name for just about everything, ironically enough) falls very short of his role as husband and how Esther is a woman of worth, despite how she is treated by him.

Do you think you could handle writing something like that? he asked, more than a little tongue in cheek.

So I sat down and wrote it in just a few minutes, it felt. Bam. Here’s a little bit of what’s happened to me, a little bit of my childhood, and a little bit of hope anyway.

It’s called You’ll Know Him. And my niece Charis sure did knock it out of the park when she sang it on stage, by the way.

And shortly after, I remember hearing from one of my good friends that a mutual friend of ours asked if Drew and I had broken up. She said it like that: did they break up? Like we were in high school and relationships were more like musical chairs than anything else. At the time, I found that term so strange. How does something break that was never supposed to, I wondered? It’s ironic. Like the Titanic, billed as the ‘unsinkable ship.’

And it hurt like hell.

Yes, like hell. Or at least the closest I had ever been to hell on this earth.

But then one could wonder how something that was built on such a faulty foundation managed to stay together for that long, anyway. It’s like walking across a bridge and, once you’re on the other side, you notice that it’s sagging. Which wouldn’t be that terrible, except that it’s a suspension bridge. And now you’d rather not live your life in that kind of suspense anymore–the kind that leaves you waking up wondering if this is the day the bridge is just gonna fall and take you down with it.

Like what almost happened.

So you decide not to ever go over that bridge again. You hope the bridge gets fixed, you really do; but you cannot risk your life on it.

And now it’s been six months, which is incredible. Both because it’s weird to think about how life was and now it’s even weirder to think that life wasn’t always like this. And I am not sure, exactly, how one is supposed to go about celebrating a break up like this, but what I did was quietly text my brother, letting him know it was six months.

To which he said: Wow I can’t believe it’s been that long! In some ways it seems so recent. How are you feeling about it? What a crazy six months.

Which was an understatement, to say the least.

And I thought about his question before telling him the truth: Feeling grateful. Both because I’m not with him and that I never have to live through that winter again.

And then he gave me a good and a Me tooooooooo!!!!! yes, with exactly nine ‘o’s’ and five exclamation points because that’s what we do around here when we want someone to know we’re serious about what we’re saying.

Or, I should say, texting. When we’re serious about what we are texting.

So, right. Six months. So grateful. Life has so much color and I can’t help but appreciate it. I can’t help but live reverently here, because look at it.

It’s good, right?

Right.

And deleted a lot of them.

It was time.

And it’s amazing how photos can stir your sense memory; amazing how the story is written in the colors and the feel of the images.

And I love to look at this; it’s a good story.
A girl, just turned three, blowing out the candles on her cat cake. It had to be a cat cake, you know. Every year. Maybe this year my mom will make me a cat cake again. That’d be nice.

And this picture.

It says a lot.

Drew had just told me a little bit of the story that would shatter my life, though I still was ignorant of a lot of it. And then we went to one of my best friend’s wedding. I sang a song for them and was about to give a speech. One about love, faithfulness, the joy of covenant.

I was sitting in this room with Drew and I couldn’t see him. Not really, anyway. I didn’t understand where he had gone, though he was sitting across from me. But he might as well have been back in Delaware, while I was in the North Carolina mountains, for all the real relating he was doing.

Oh, but it makes sense now. And so does the fact that after the wedding, he opted to go hang out with some strangers at a bar, dragging me there, rather than spend some quality time with me. I guess it didn’t matter that I had just this last day off from work.

And then this was taken when I was in California.

And I love how it looks like they finally had to just put me in a straight jacket.

Because I felt that crazy.

I didn’t know which way was up or down and the few things that I did still know–family, trusted friends, God, and music–I kept holding onto like it was a lifeline.

But a straight jacket–that could have totally made sense.

And so did the color yellow.

This was a good day.

Darby and I went out to get pedicures. The sun was bright and the sky clear and blue where it wasn’t already crowded with mountains. And we went to eat some food and we talked, which is when I started tentatively talking about life without him. And Darby acted like this was normal, so as not to scare me into realizing the change all at once, I think. She listened and agreed and loved me. And every time I looked at my painted yellow toenails, I felt a little bit happier.

And then I came back East and I couldn’t believe how horrible everything was.

The airport. The christmas decorations. The people who knew me, but couldn’t really know me–not anymore, not after what had happened, I thought.

And a friend just recently told me that he knew something tragic had happened to me the first time he saw me at church, right before Christmas, I guess.

And this picture makes me think of that.

I was walking around like a dead person. My parents wondered if I’d ever be the same again–though they had the wisdom not to mention that to me then. And I didn’t care about much anymore. Life looked like a very long time to be here, and I wondered what exactly I would find to do with all these days that piled up before me like math homework. And I was never very good at math.

But then Christmas happened and a few days later, we went to a museum.

An art museum.

And Lyric and I rode in my parents’ car together and I taught her a song that we proceeded to sing together just about the whole way there. It is one of my audition songs and, goodness, but singing is good for the soul.

And once we got to the museum I remember looking at the art like I’d never seen it before. I remember thinking it was interesting that I had this terrible secret that all of the people around me (with the exception of my family) would never have guessed in a million years. And I remember he called me and my heart hurt so badly that I had to tell him I couldn’t talk to him. And then he said he was sorry and I didn’t understand why he said that because sorry doesn’t look like that. It doesn’t look like any of the stuff he did against me; and even if it did, well, sorry doesn’t mean that much anymore.

And this picture of Ollie is perfect. It was just after Christmas and a group of us were at the mall and there were people I knew there, so I made him duck inside Harry & David’s with me in an attempt to not have to say hello.

And his look just about sums up the way I felt about the situation too.

It totally sucked.

All of it.

I know, novel idea.

But then I didn’t want any of your computers to blow up because I had surpassed the amount of words allowed in one comment box. And it’s a doozy of a question (which I totally welcome; I guess by now you’ve figured out that I live my life on the more open side of things. Although I don’t know how I could have pretended that there wasn’t an explosion–not when everyone heard the sirens and saw the smoke and the burning building, anyway. And wow, but that’s a long parenthetical statement. Let’s make it just a little bit longer by saying that I had cheesecake tonight, too. And nope, that’s not relevant at all but it did make the parenthetical statement longer, so check).

Deep breath.

Now what was I even saying?

Oh right.

I was talking about this question, asked by my dear friend Mandy Hornbuckle:

I do wonder that sometimes, Jess – If you had it to do over, knowing what happened, would you have still married him?

And I have two answers for this, I guess. I have the clear and obvious choice. That is, if someone told me that this person would end up not at all being the person he presented himself to be; that he would lead a double life which would finally culminate in a devastating affair–not just devastating to me, but to others that I love as well–and then this person proceeded to be like, So…whaddaya think?

I think I’d be like, hahahahaha good one, but thanks anyway.

But then I think there might be a deeper answer, less obvious, but no less true. I think about how my brother and sister-in-law miscarried a child and how sad that was and how we all wept for the life that was lost to our family. I think about how wrong it felt, how nobody could tell us that his little life was better spent far from the arms of his parents.

But then I see my nephew Ollie and I cannot begin to describe the kind of brilliance he is. He is a light and I love him fiercely. When I was out there with Latshaw-WEST during my darkest night of the soul, so to speak, he was the earth and sun and moon to me. He woke me up one night, just to give me midnight kitheth and I cannot begin to tell you how special that was. He wrote a report about me in which he told his teacher that he loves everything about [me]–and after the words I’d heard from another source, those were healing, to say the least. He is a beautiful boy and my point is that I cannot imagine life without him and the greater point is that if Jason and Darby had not miscarried, there would be no Ollie to give me midnight kitheth or to light my world.

And this blows my mind. I don’t understand how to reconcile it, but I do know that I am grateful for Ollie. I also don’t believe in living in a world of what if’s; rather, I think reality has a grace and redemption that is full enough so I’d rather just look around and see it for myself right in front of me, if that’s alright.

I recently told a dear friend that I am not going to apologize for my life. Because see, I’ve thought about doing just that for a while now–well, ever since it’s changed so drastically. I suddenly was constantly feeling like the nervous host whose guests drop in unexpectedly and look, there’s the dirty laundry piling up and over the clothes basket; there’s the carpet faded and dingy and the blinds covered in dust. And here I am apologizing the whole time and nobody can get a word in edge-wise.

But see, my life–it’s complicated, maybe. Surprising, definitely. But it’s not dirty. I think I can see that now. And I am pretty sure–positive, actually–that someday I will tell people my story and I will talk about the indelible threads that connect this pain with the beauty that has sprung forth since.

And so maybe if that same someone who I quoted earlier as saying that Drew would end up not at all being the person he presented himself to be; that he would lead a double life which would finally culminate in a devastating affair–not just devastating to me, but to others that I love as well–and then went on to say that afterwards I would experience a life that I never could have imagined, a beauty of which I never could have conceived…Well, that would probably change my answer considerably.

And no, I don’t think that it’s God’s design to make marriages suffer and people do terrible things to each other. But I do think that God brings beauty out of ugliness, joy out of pain; and that maybe someday I will say this beauty is so great and this joy so much better than I’d hoped, that all the terrible stuff was worth it to get here.

Though I am not sure I would have had the strength to choose what happened–it was that terrible. But at the same time–it did. All of it. And like I said, I cannot change it–but I am not sure that I even would now, because what if that changed some of the truly great things that have happened–and shall continue to–in the wake of the storm?

So, like I said–a doozy.

And so very hard to understand or even reconcile within my own mind.

But here’s to trying, I suppose.

But the bookends, they were nice.

The morning was lovely. Full of the sun, full of this state park that the locals call Seven Thousand Acres; full of glimpses of deer that were so quick as they bounded into the brush that I pretended it was centaurs I was seeing instead.

But the middle of the day…Oh, my.

I saw my accountant and I did not get good news. I told myself not to cry, but it was like telling yourself not to sneeze when the world seems to be that library-esque atmosphere that depends on absolute silence. Cause then BAM! you’re sneezing and why did God have to make sneezes so loud?

So I am sitting there, furiously wiping my eyes and not making a sound, trying to act interested in the somewhat patriotic poster that is to the left of my accountant’s head, when he starts to tell me to just calm down, that it’s gonna be okay.

Which is kind of the kiss of death while attempting the great magic trick of not crying when that’s all you want to do.

And then he hands me tissues.

And the thing about tissues is that I don’t think my family regularly used them while I was growing up. I never really know what to do with them. I mean, I wipe my tears away with my hand just fine, thank you. But when someone goes to the trouble of locating that pastel colored box and then hands it to you, there’s some sort of reciprocity expected.

So I awkwardly blow my nose and then, not finding a trash can, hold the used tissue for the rest of my stay.

And my accountant, he’s so nice and well, he knows about what I’ve been going through–having known me for a couple years now–and he always tries to be really encouraging when he sees me. Tells me I’m looking good and things like that.

But still, the news is discouraging and he keeps asking me what he can do. But short of–I don’t know, a generous donation on his part–I just tell him that it’s okay, to just let me sign the papers and be done with it.

The good thing is that by the time I leave, I don’t want to cry anymore. I realize that in the grand scheme of things, this latest news really isn’t so bad at all.

And then I get a phone call from the jewelry dealer with whom I am about to meet at Grotto Pizza, a place I worked for a day and then quit, but that’s another post. He’s about to look at my stuff and hopefully buy it, but when he tells me that he’ll be wearing a black button down shirt, but it won’t be buttoned, I have to stifle a laugh.

And wonder just what the heck it is I am getting myself into anyway.

I finally see him, and true to his word, his shirt is not buttoned. Though he does have an undershirt on and there is some chest hair popping out the top, so there’s that. I say hi, which is apparently another way to say, Please kiss me, cause that’s what he does. I don’t mind though; he’s super Italian, Joe is, and I can tell that is a normal thing for him.

Plus I haven’t been kissed in a while.

Just kidding.

Well, I haven’t been kissed in a while, but it’s not like Joe’s kiss made up for it or anything.

Anyway.

And oh, I can call Joe super Italian, because I am Italian. Though my quarter Italian blood would probably not be classified as super Italian.

Anyway again.

He looks at my jewelry and immediately asks if I was engaged. Actually, married, I tell him, and then I get that look, the one that says something to the effect of poor thing.  And then he asks me what happened. So I give the short answer: He’s not who I thought he was. He makes sad noises and asks me if the diamond in my ring is real.

It better be, I tell him, but at this point nothing would surprise me.

He tells me that he’ll give me $160 in cash for all my jewelry and I don’t care enough to go anywhere else and try to get a better deal. He explains that engagement/wedding bands have almost no resell value and that jewelry stores mark them up by sometimes 1000%. I believe him without even caring if it’s BS or not. And as I watch him weigh my painfully light jewelry, I decide that if anybody ever proposes to me again, it’d be nice if he gives me a solid gold bowling ball. You know, something that will retain it’s value and be good and heavy on that scale.

He asks me one more time what the guy did. I can tell he wants a story, so what the heck? he doesn’t know me at all; I give it to him. I tell him the ugly details. Not all of them, but the gist, anyway. He is satisfactorily shocked and appalled.

As he kisses me one more time before I leave he tells me, You’re so gorgeous you won’t have a hard time finding somebody at all. I think to myself that I’ve already had somebody. That I’d like to specify somebody awesome now, if that’s okay.

Oh, and the spandex. Right. I’m wearing spandex because I took a modern dance class tonight.  And then on my way home from the class, I had a conversation with Drew. It started out about the phone or something, but it ended with him telling me that he got a certificate of divorce in the mail. Which is not exactly the way I wanted to find out, like we were in it together, or something.

But apparently I am divorced and have been since April 7th. And after I found out, I was wracking my brain, trying to figure out what I did on the 7th anyway, cause whatever it was, I was doing it as someone who is officially single.

Remember. I prefer single over divorced.

Oh, and solid gold bowling balls over diamond rings.

And after hearing that news, I needed to walk very far. I needed to see some beautiful things and listen to the sound of water rushing by, I think. I needed to be reminded that I am okay, that I am me, that life is good.

So I did. I walked for a long time while my phone was blowing up with texts from a cast of stars who care about me. And I never did get to change out of the shiny blue spandex.

Which is why I texted my friend at one point, telling her that I am sitting against a tree while wearing shiny blue spandex, laughing about that while crying at the same time. The animals must think I’m cray-cray.

And then that friend, Lindsay, she came over. She helped me bake a terrible batch of cookies that I was trying to make for my nice accountant. Well, I wasn’t trying to make terrible ones, that’s just how they ended up. And Lindsay is an amazing cook, but I unfortunately did some faulty math before she got there and added something like 14 cups of flour to the batter when it had only called for 8.

Oops.

Maybe my over indulgence with the flour was due to the fact that my spandex are so tight. Or that my day has been a doozey. Or that it has been a long time since I’ve been kissed, you know. But those cookies never did see the inside of an oven. Instead, they are inside a trash can, poor little wasted things.

But I am not.

Inside a trash can, I mean.

I’m alive and I think there’s a lot of room for good things in my life. Maybe even better than my shiny blue spandex pants. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say definitely better than my shiny blue spandex pants.

I know, call me crazy.

Strong.
Together.
Held.
Surrounded.
Weak.
Broken.
Sustained.
Carried.

Lost.
Resilient.
Humbled.
Bereft.
Grasping.
No longer empty handed.
Found.

How can a person be all of those things? How can we burst at the seams with how we feel and still eat sandwiches because, by the time noon rolls around, lunch feels important again?

How can the mingling of the mundane and the surreal collide with me every day, creating a kind of thunder, so to speak, that can eventually feel as normal as the sound of a summer storm in July?

And how many Sundays in a row will I have to tell someone that, no, the reason I am no longer with Drew is not because I was away on tour? So far the answer is two, but hey, there’s always next Sunday, I guess.

So many questions, but I don’t think that peace is necessarily in the answers. Though I wouldn’t mind knowing them, so don’t be shy if you know and if the answer is what most would deem nice.

I think there is peace in living fully in the present; getting home and finding your finger nails good and dirty because you dug so deep into the stuff of life today. I think there is peace in realizing that, sure, five minutes fromt now might find you somewhere else–somewhere shocking, even–but right now, this is where God has put you and you might as well live like it’s good.

Because, you know, it just might be good after all.

*pictures taken by Dan Dunlap; dancers: Olivia Carlsen, Avery McGee

For instance, I met someone a bit ago. She was nice enough. But she said things to me to which I couldn’t honestly say thank you in return.

Like when she first looked at me she said, Wow. Your hair is really white. To which I replied, Okay. And then we moved past that little dead end of a conversation.

And then later, when I stood up, she said, Wow. I didn’t realize, but you are incredibly tall. I mean: incredibly. She used that word. The same one all of our Sunday school teachers used to describe Goliath’s height. Like I’m a giant among women. Like my particular chore is to unscrew and replace the light bulbs in the 12 foot tall floodlights out at the basketball court. And again, all I could say was, Oh. Alright.

So yeah, would it absolutely kill you to–if you’re gonna say anything at all–actually make it nice too?

And then the other day in the bathroom. At church. Which is a room I don’t particularly relish to begin with. Because you get so stuck in there. They get you at the sinks. Sure, you could flee before someone starts shooting out questions you’d rather not answer right now, but that would mean you didn’t wash your hands and do you really want that to be your legacy?

So yeah, I  wash my hands.

Which is when a well-intentioned person told me, Well Drew must certainly be glad to have you back.

And see, Drew is a lot of things right now, but glad to have me back is not one of them. In fact, even if you isolated a couple of those things, you still wouldn’t get it right. Cause he’s not glad and he certainly doesn’t have me. And considering that I came back and ruined his party–well no, he wasn’t glad then and I don’t think that he’s glad now.

Though to be fair, I have not asked.

Call it a woman’s intuition, I suppose.

So I looked at the woman and just told her the truth.

And she was shocked. Of course she was. We had adopted two kittens from her not all that long ago. Most people who adopt cats don’t plan on anything other than staying together, right?

And to her credit, she did not ask who got the cats.

But she did say something else. Something that made me very upset. Because after I told her that Drew had made some terrible choices that ended our marriage, she said, Well it must be pretty hard not to when you have a wife who’s gone so much.

And I could have said some words that would have made the nearby soap very handy for a good mouth rinse, but I didn’t.

I simply said, That’s no excuse.

Or maybe she said it when she saw my eyes turn dark and noticed that my breathing had changed.

But whatever the case, we both agreed.

At least about the no excuse part.

And the reason that it struck such a chord with me is that honestly, I do sometimes feel guilty. About having been gone, I mean. And though we had always agreed that I should take the jobs that were offered to me, I still felt really sad to miss the part about living together all the time; I still lived for the time when I could come home.

Course, I hadn’t realized that he had stopped caring if I ever came home again.

I didn’t realize that I had been singing that particular song solo for some time by the time I did actually get to go home.

And the thing is, if I am lucky enough to fall in love again, I am pretty sure that I will not tour. And can you blame me? Cause though I will never say that my touring is what made all this mess come about, I just have this feeling that I’m not gonna be able to go again. Not when I know how much is at stake.

Not after all of this.

I like it.

It’s not the sort of thing I’m gonna wear to church. I think I’d be just a little too self-conscious in it, considering it’s silver and collared and all that. But I do like it.

It’s like Startrek meets couture or something. And then puts on a pair of heels. Cause I’ve only worn it with heels.

And I’ve only worn it in Japan.

Which is interesting because, well, Drew hasn’t ever seen me wear it. And neither have any of you, most likely, but the difference is that Drew might very well never see me wear it. And yeah, I know. That’s a lyric that’s just begging to go into a song:

And now you’ll never see me in my space age silver onesie…

It should probably be a country song. Or a rap. Definitely a rap.

And then the other day I realized that the only belts I have right now are either bright pink, bright blue, or purple. So yeah, what about if one needs to wear a belt that doesn’t say, LOOK AT ME!! I’M A BELT THAT NEVER GOT THE ATTENTION I NEEDED WHILE GROWING UP!!!!

Oh, what’s that? All the normal people have belts that are either a polite and respectful brown or black? And they get these alleged belts at places like Macy’s? Great.

So I went to Macy’s and took way too long to decide upon one sensible brown leather belt. And yes, it’s got some flower pattern etched into it cause, come on. You really think I’m gonna go completely plain jane on you?

And as I was buying it I had the thought: Drew doesn’t know about this belt and may never know about this belt.

And sure, it’s just a belt. I mean, there’s a freaking divorce certificate that will be arriving in the mail before too long so maybe I should save my mental processing for that beast, but these details, they are significant too. And the belt is just another detail of my life that is separate from his and whoa! I never could have predicted this.

And tonight I got to go see Ingrid Michaelson (who was stunningly awesome, by the way) and she sang this line–

I don’t wanna be the one to say goodbye
But I will, I will, I will
I don’t wanna sit on the pavement while you fly
But I will, I will, oh yes I will

And see, it’s true. I never did wanna be the one to say goodbye. Not once. And I always hated each of the regular goodbyes that were a part of our life together, what with my job continuing to take me away and all that.

But sometimes goodbye is the right thing to say and sometimes it’s more just like bye because there just doesn’t seem like much good left. Until, that is, you do say goodbye.

And start to buy belts on your own.

And yes, it’s just a belt, but it’s something.

And something usually leads to something else which in this case I’m hoping is gonna be good.

Someone else made me a purse. Like that’s normal. Like everybody goes around making things that most of us only buy.

Someone made me cookies a few weeks ago.

Someone(s) sent me flowers on Valentine’s Day.

Someone else gave me some homemade rolls yesterday. Homemade potato rolls. Once again something that most people only ever buy.

Many a different someone has been available to talk to me–whenever; to frame my feelings in words that do make a difference.

Someone else gave me a shirt. A sweet little shirt that says peace. And at first when she simply told me what she was giving me, and I had yet to see it, I thought she said that the shirt said peas. Like the vegetable. And believe me, I was still excited about that because I am an avid fan of peas. Once I ate a whole dinner that consisted of peas. And before you are super impressed–conjuring up all the different dishes I must have cooked while using peas as my main ingredient–let me explain a little further and say that my dinner was a huge bowl of peas. And not a cereal bowl, either: a mixing bowl. But, still, that’s it.

So yes, I’d be proud to wear a shirt that said peas. That’s a cause I can support wholeheartedly.

But when I unfolded the shirt and saw it actually said peace–well, even better. Because if I were to choose which of the two would better help me through this particular season of my life, I’d have to say peace.

Though another large mixing bowl’s worth of peas could be a very close second.

Which makes me think of the shirt Drew bought me right before I left for Japan. It’s all about peace. In fact, it suggests you go about the business of peace every way possible. That you meditate for it, pray for it, be for it, bring it, and make it. The shirt says all that. In a sparkly silver. Like it is written in angel dust.

And I wore that shirt to warm up before the show every night. It was another way to stay close to home, to stay close to him.

Which is just ridiculous.

I mean, peace.

How ironic that I wore that idea so faithfully. How ironic that, like the shirt, what it stood for was only skin deep anyway. How terribly ironic that the shirt he bought me talked about the opposite of everything that would happen. That I came home to chaos, though as of yet thinly disguised; that I wore my peace shirt, still,  like it could help at all.

There are words for that, I guess. Pitiful. Stupid. Though a friend told me he would replace those words with something more along the lines of trusting. Even innocent. Which is a kind way to put it. And I like the kind way; I try to follow that way.

But my point in all this is that I am the child who woke up on Christmas morning to a house that had been visited by some kind of terrible Grinch. And he had taken seemingly everything–well, everything except “a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.”

So yeah, I shouldn’t be so upset.

But then, something marvelous happened.

It seems people noticed the bleakness of my situation and I am left a girl marked by kindness. A girl marked by love. A girl marked by a community that will not leave her alone.

And I am humbled when I would otherwise be self-pitying, another kind of low that doesn’t end so well.

And I am buoyed when I would otherwise drown.

And I am indisputably loved.

Whoa.

Which is so beautifully different from woe.

I didn’t know a lot back then, I guess; I still don’t know a lot, per se, but I know more than I did. I know the awful truth and though you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free has taken its toll, as well as its time, I think I’m getting there.

Getting to be free, I mean.

But when I first found out that he didn’t love me, I didn’t know what to do with myself. The few who knew about what was going on were calling me, warning me, loving me, but it was like I had become an answering machine. No matter who called, no matter what message they left, I would say the same thing: It’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna be okay; it’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna be okay…and then beeeeeeeeep.

And that was probably me flatlining just a little before somebody else called and the answering machine kicked in.

And wouldn’t you know it that one of my best friends was getting married in just a few days? And so not only did life demand of me that I attend a wedding, I was also the matron of honor, so in addition to singing a song I had written while Drew accompanied me, I gave a toast.

A toast about love; a toast about marriage.

And you know, I am glad that I was able to go; glad that it was not one more precious thing stolen from me in this ugly mess.

But getting there, that was another story.

Drew and I had different flights and so were waiting at two different terminals that morning. And I was a mess. Can’t imagine why. Just tonight, somebody who I am getting to know was texting me about emotional pain, telling me: The pain is just indescribable. I don’t know if you’ve felt it…but it is horrible…And suddenly I was brought back to that morning, when I was waiting to fly to the wedding and feeling alone in every way possible.

I remember watching two young women. They were like me in that their luggage was fun and funky; I think one girl had something purple and I had polka dots. But they were laughing, talking excitedly, smiling a lot in their exchange while I was feeling shocked at how much of a contrast I was to them.

I kept breathing and marveling at how my body still did its job. My heart beat. My pulse kept time. But I no longer cared. It’s like if somehow somebody survived the atom bomb and managed to find their cubicle the next morning. They made their copies, filed their papers, picked up a dead phone and tried to make calls, but nobody was even around to answer anymore. All the work that mattered so much had lost it’s meaning in just one moment. But that person knew nothing else, so they still tried to work.

And there was my body, still doing the work; still busy with living.

Still acting like it mattered.

But God, I hurt so much. And every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was me, taking my skin off. Peeling away every bit of me until I was just the pain and then maybe the pain could be flicked away. You know, like what the mean kids did to the daddy long leg spiders when we were little. They’d pluck away each of the legs, one by one, until just the little ball of his body was left, and then they’d flick that away. I thought maybe if I could just get down to the pain, I could flick it away too.

And so I pulled out my Iphone and started to write. I wrote like I was a junkie and putting those words together was the hit that I needed. And my thoughts, they centralized, somehow. I was finally one big goal; finally not terrified or confused or panicking as I wrote just a little bit of my nightmare down.

And as I thought about the punctuation I wanted to use, if I should end a particular sentence right there or connect two with a semi-colon, something inside of me was momentarily soothed.

I wrote for my life that morning, though I was chronicling a death.

And I didn’t show anyone what I had written for a long time. It felt too sad, too ugly, too strange. And even when I finally did, I made a disclaimer, saying that nobody had told me that they didn’t love me. But that wasn’t particularly true. He hadn’t said it to my face, but he’d said it in enough ways and to enough other people (and really, once is enough) that truly, he had said it.

Anyway, this is what I wrote that morning. I’ll never forget that feeling; It’s not a place I ever want to be again.

I keep seeing myself taking my skin off. Just like you’d peel off your wet clothes, I take off all my skin, fold it up neatly, and tuck it away in a drawer. I don’t leave my skin all over the floor; I put it away, just like my mom taught me.

And it’s so easy, so simple. Because now I walk around, just bones all bleached white, knocking together like teeth chattering on a January day. And when he tells me he doesn’t love me anymore, it makes sense.

‘Of course he doesn’t love her,’ they all whisper, ‘She’s just a pile of bones, after all.’