Nothing

I exist now in fragments of time. 

Short spaces between gut wrenching sorrow where tears are shed and silence steps in, not exactly peace and certainly not relief. There is no relief. Just a kind of nothing. A kind of waiting, until the next spasm gathers momentum and sidelines me again. I'm starting to get used to it, this new sort of existence I live out every day. But it makes me tired. I miss so many things since Rob has been gone, especially him—but also me.

And us.

Once upon a time, I thrived in the security of his lavish love. Now, in these in-between spaces, I gather my strength for sorrow’s assaults, alone and wrung out. It’s deathly still, here in this pseudo-shelter, but I don’t feel safe.

Or serene.

I don’t feel hope, though I’m not hopeless. Acceptance eludes my ravaged heart.

To coin my own phrase, it’s a numb of lull.

It looks calm. It feels empty. Sounds quiet. It’s just . . . nothing. Maybe this is what Rob’s “Nothing Box” was like for him. The place he always went to where no one else was invited. I knew he was in there by the blank look on his face as he’d brace himself against a wall, cross his arms over his chest in that oh, so familiar way, and stare off into space.

“Whatcha doing?” I’d ask. “Nothing,” he’d answer.

“Whatcha thinking about?” “Nothing.”

“You’re not thinking about anything?” I’d ask in disbelief. “Nope,” he’d answer from deep inside the echo chamber I wasn’t allowed to enter.

I think it was a bomb shelter of sorts. Or a storm cellar. Some isolated place to escape where no one could follow and the noisy world could be shut out. That’s what these moments of nothing feel like right now.  While I keep an eye on the second hand’s motion, fierce winds swirl above me, bearing down like a falling barometer until the pressure sends me spiraling into waves of grief. Again. There is no escaping this storm. It never moves on. It just withdraws for a while, gathers momentum, and nails me once more.

They tell me the intensity of the grief cyclone will lessen, but the wailing in my soul is so loud I can’t imagine that ever being true. “It hurts so much because you loved so much,” I am reminded. This is the high cost of love. This half existence with its unanswered questions and unfinished business, this is what alone looks like.  There is no big picture anymore. There is no “taking it day by day.” There is no “fine” to the question, “How are you?”

There are only integers of nothing, bookended by the ongoing agony of missing him. Emptied of tears, for a short while my heart welcomes the respite here—the in-between where I brace again for the onslaught of perpetual grief.

As if watching the hands on a clock, I catch my breath and wait. It’s intermission.

Day after day, fragments of time.

With thanks to Peri Scope for the use of the brilliant photo seen above. The original can be viewed at the following link: Time | Peri Scope | Flickr