The Abyss

I rushed home after a particularly trying day at work…having to dodge crazy commuters on the train….plopped my tired body on my camel-colored chenille couch and opened a bottle of Chardonnay (some new one I decided to pick up at the farmers market. I even decided to get “decadent” and open some cheese and crackers (lol)) . I stripped out of my clothes and into my favorite, comfy robe. I put on my favorite singer, Maxwell’s, new album and chilled out… I took one sip of wine...one bit of cheese and cracker. Then….I turned off the album just after one song and sat straight up…I sat in silence. I realized that I just rushed home…to and for absolutely nothing.

It’s times like these that the reality of divorce hits hardest for me. The silence rolls in like fog from the San Francisco Bay…better yet...like the stifling heat of an August day in Georgia. The silence then transforms itself into loneliness. At times like these, I want to come home and have dinner already ready. I want the glass of wine already waiting for me. I want someone to take my bag. I wanted to hear the hustle and bustle of someone else here. I want to come home, and rest my head on someone’s shoulder, smelling their cologne, and have them massage my scalp…and say ...”Babe...let me wash your hair…”. He would stroke my face and kiss my forehead, eyelids, and move down the bridge of my nose to my lips. He’d smile and whisper in my ear at random… “It’ll be alright…you’re home now.”

Just make me feel better and adore me.

My job right now is totally uncertain. Due to state mandated furloughs, I will have to take a possible 6 days off between now and July 1, end of the fiscal year. This is going to impact me greatly financially as I am already on a pretty tight budget. Times are going to be tough, but I know I will be able to make it. I have a deep core of inner strength, yet at the same time, it would be nice for someone to say...”Baby...WE can make it”. Or “Baby, I can help US…” I don’t have that. Even when I was married, I didn’t really have that assurance that everything was going to be alright. A little support..a little assurance...it goes a long way. It makes you feel good.

I am not ashamed to say that I am a woman who is independent, smart, and resourceful. Yet at the same time, I am certainly not a woman who thinks that I “don’t need a man” or “men aren’t shit” or “I can do bad by myself”. You most certainly WILL do bad by yourself. Of course you need the opposite sex (or same sex if that’s your preference). That is what we are made for on this Earth- a deep development of interpersonal relationships with someone you love and adore. Who wants to be the “old man/woman in the club”? I certainly don’t. Who wants to be alone? I certainly don’t. I am not about to be one of those women who bite her nose off in spite of her face (or however that saying goes). I'm certainly not ashamed to say that I I LOVE men....and want to be loved by one-not sexed, lusted-after or used- simply cared for.Since being divorced, I haven’t been in a serious relationship. I had a pseudo-semi-serious relationship..but that did not last long-fleeting and very hot very fast and went cold just as fast. And when it ended, I felt nothing. That was a clear sign that this wasn’t as deep as I had thought it was..

As I sip my wine in between keystrokes, listening to Maxwell croon and focusing on the flicker of my vanilla ginger aromatherapy candle, I am comforted by that thought that I was once not alone. And I won’t be alone again. This abyss of obvious loneliness is just a temporary one. Eventually, I will climb out its dark recesses a victor. I say for now that I am ok and that perhaps a man would be a distraction.

But for right now…I miss them….him…whomever “him” may be.