Get it In

...there is still a loneliness, but it is co-existing with an alone-ness.  they differ greatly, but they are cojoined, they share certain organs with each other.  in describing it to someone today, i said that lonely and alone are like a corridor full of mirrors, creating specific dimensions, or something like that.  i was asked what it's like, and there is no real answer.  i just know that here, in an ongoing pain, in a house with only memories and me, i am alone.  i feel it strongly.  i feel it in my skin and in my marrow.  when i awaken, i feel the presence of myself and no one else.  when i drift off to sleep, i'll hear the cycling of the furnace, the noises of a house long accustomed to its own company, and the manufactured things my mind holds on to as a way to stave off the flip side of the coin.  but the coin spins, and it lands tails up, lonely.  i miss Rachel.  i wish, on cold days like this, that she was here, her warmth and her spirit.  i wish someone was here.  i miss cooking for someone else.  i miss watching movies with Rachel, with even TF.  i miss conversation.  my phone is silent, save for the ongoing texts from Syd's mom and a bill collector that i don't answer as, until i am employed again, i've not the money to make payments.  there are no tears, there haven't been since August.  they'd be unwelcome anyway.

today was good enough.  the pain lingered, as it does, and i did what i had to do in spite of it.  i prayed, i ate, i took medicines.  i thought too much.  i felt too much.  i did my meeting, took a dish to the pot luck.  i took my brother some food.  i visited my dad and mom.  i talked to Lonnie.  i've taken some pain pills and i'm about to go to sleep.  i watched some television.  i've cleaned dishes.  i made copies of a reading for next Sunday's meeting.  i have to change two doctor appointments tomorrow.  i am alone in this house, i am lonely in this space.  the mirrors are reflections of yesterdays when i had someone in my life...a daughter, a woman, more friends.  i am not ungrateful.  it is cold outside, and some are freezing in this weather with no shelter, and some will die of exposure.  fires are raging in California.  Detroit still has tainted water and Puerto Rico has not been fully restored yet.  i am blessed, cared for and tended to.  i thank Jehovah for that.  but i feel what i feel.  that's okay too.  that's the human that is Tim.  that is toti, unspoken of for a long time now, but still here.  and the journey continues.