you wake up

I have cried more in the last nine weeks than I have ever cried in my whole life. I have cried every day. Crying to relieve the internal pressure is different than crying in frustration over something you have the ability, but not the power, to change.

I remember in mid-June of 2005 I suddenly decided I wanted to make a Father's Day gift. It didn't matter that I had no one to give it to. I wanted to paint a picture and I went into the office where we were planning on tearing up the carpet anyway, and painted in there, not caring if the paint spilled or dripped while I worked. I was painting a sailboat. I don't know why I wanted to paint a sailboat but it was clear in my mind exactly how it should look. It wasn't so much the boat itself I was interested in painting as its reflection in the water and the bleached rotten wood of the dock it was anchored to in my mind.

And it was a poorly done painting. I couldn't get it right and it didn't look the way I'd imagined it either. About halfway through the painting the fire inside me went out and I stopped. It was a good intention that turned out bad - and it seemed like the most appropriate gift I'd ever made befitting a non-existant Nobodaddy. And it struck me that I couldn't send my half-finished good intentioned piece of garbage even if my pride had let me because I'd torn the pages out of the address book with the address and phone number I needed -- to stop myself from doing something just exactly that ridiculous.

And I went to bed and cried my eyes out. And wished that I wasn't moving and that I didn't have to pack and fix the house by myself. And wished that Shawn would come home and wished that I didn't have to leave my job and my friends and my family. And wished that I had somewhere to send my ugly half-a-picture that I painted for a figment of my imagination. And that was one of the most lonely times I can ever remember in my whole life until now.

*