Seen: the tears I can’t not cry whenever I speak my brother Peter’s name.
Unseen: the clinch that tightens around my throat with my tears’ falling.
Is this a cause and effect? or is it simply Grief’s calling card?
Seen: their 59th anniversary prompt on today’s calendar.
Unseen: the lump I swallow around, thinking if I swallow hard enough I won’t cry.
Is this going to happen every March 14 until I, too, am not here to swallow?
Seen: me hugging my almost 25-year-old daughter so hard.
Unseen: the internal argument I’m having with myself because I no longer have her all to and by myself.
Will I ever learn to share what is definitely my most precious thing ever? Do I have to?
Seen: the most amazing man loving me, walking with me and holding my hand all night long, every single night.
Unseen: the terrorizing thought gripping my chest that he will leave.
Do trauma triggers and PTSD ever go away?
Seen: shelves upon shelves of books behind and around me.
Unseen: my fear that I’m not smart enough yet so I rage read to wrack up more volumes finished.
There’s a reason I set a limit of 52 books per year. Maybe this year I’ll not exceed it. Not likely.
Seen: me holding the microphone and singing loudly, “Maybe This Time,” and “I Feel Lucky” in front of the room.
Unseen: my pounding heart that’s not pounding so heavy it blocks my throat like before and before and the time before that.
I hear me as I open my mouth, like there’s an Oreo sitting on my tongue. Just like that.
Seen: my friend is sad and says it’s hard for him to be with himself.
Unseen: my immediate walk back in time to all the times I struggled to be with myself, too.
That journey is hard and lonely. I know. And I know it will transform you. You will Become, just like the Skin Horse. And just like me.
Seen: documentaries, podcasts (heard) and news stories about Mormons, Fundamentalists, origin stories and current events.
Unseen: the weight of my emotional separation from my family and their rights, their wrongs, their moralities.
Who can ever say when the crushing wound will happen to you? Or how it will splay you open, exposed and vulnerable to the man behind the curtain. . . .
Seen: me living my best life, finally.
Unseen: me living my best life, finally.
Can I bottle this up and stock my own shelves with it? Self-Preservation is the gift that keeps on giving me my Life.