Returning

I sat down to write a blog post this morning. I thought I would share with you how I've been feeling. I thought I would write about the anger I have at certain people in my life who have tried to hurt me. I thought I would write about the regret I have that I put myself in a position to be hurt. I thought when I sat down to try and express the anxiety that has been building in my chest, like a two-ton weight threatening to suffocate me, the words would flow out onto the page and give me much needed release. It didn't happen.

Every word seemed forced. Every setiment carefully scrubbed clean of any mention of names, dates, or places that would somehow incriminate me. I was self-censoring my thoughts into shadows. They darted across the screen before disappearing. There was no lasting impression.

I felt inconsequential. Without weight. Maybe it was me who was disappearing along with the words. I left the room. The computer screen was still on, glaring it's ghostly white light.

When I went downstairs, the house was empty. David knew I was bone-weary. He had bundled up the kids to take them for a walk, give me some room to recompose.

I traveled through the rooms of the house aimlessly, looking for something that would root me.

There was the newly converted office turned playroom, an explosion of primary color. The antinque ride-on train sat quietly, shinny, in the corner. It waited for it's new owner. This was a very generous and thoughful gift from my baby brother to his favorite nephew. I smiled at the image of Jack running into the living room, Brian holding out the plastic Firemen's hat, the two delighting as they pulled the fire hose and rang the bell.

There was the painting that David and I just got around to hanging on the living room wall. We bought it this summer at a street fair. I can still remember the vendor who sold it to us. She rose in my mind with her crooked front tooth. I recalled how she told me my babies were beautiful. That day was a bright spot in a difficult summer, punctuated by post-partum and colic. We had a fussy baby, a jealous toddler, no time for ourselves. We fought ourselves to the brink of separation before pulling back. I gained a daughter that summer but almost lost everything else. How far we have come since then.

There were the rows upon rows of books that line our dinning room walls. My hands lingered upon titles and the memories of past readings they evoked. I read Black Swan Green the summer Jack was born. He would lay on my chest for hours at a time. Sometimes I would read him passages aloud as he snuggled to my chest. That imprint of love, lasting. There was the Stranger, that haunting book by Camu. That I read during college. I inhaled books by Camu and Kafka, convinced there was no purpose in life. We were alone in a cruel and careless world. Holding The Stranger in my hand, I recalled that pivotal scene that takes place on a beach, blinding heat and random murder. Camu calls on us the reader to judge this act and in doing so our whole existence.

Can who we are ever be summed up in just one act of lust, of violence, of love? Does one mistake define us?

I don't think any of us have the answer to that. But, as I looked around my home, listened to the silent speech of objects, dug deep to recompse memories, one thing was clear.

There really is no judge worth listeing to but the one inside yourself. At the end of the day, I have to take ownership of what I've created with my two hands. I am the sum of every diaper changed, every lullaby sung. I am the measure of every word spoken, every letter typed. I need to own it. I need to need.

As I climbed the stairs that that would take me back up to the computer, my thoughts were more focused. A certain truth was finally clear. As I sat down at the desk and began to type, I was sure that I was ready to begin, again.

This is a life. To live. This is my life. To write.