writing for your life.

It was the beginning of the end, but I still didn’t know it.

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.’