Here Goes Nothing

For the first time I am "publicly" sharing some of my writing. Public, of course, only if someone reads it. Trust me this is more for me than for whoever may stumble across this blog.

Off and on through the years I have tried to be disciplined with my writing but inevitably it falls to the wayside smothered in excuses. I have no time. I have nothing worth writing about. I don't have enough content to actually create a book. What if no one likes it? What if I fail?

This was one of my writing assignments from a book I have called, "Wild Mind". Written February and March 2008

:::Take a situation, a story that is hard for you to talk about, and write about it. Write slowly, evenly, in a measured way. Don't skip over any part of it. Stay in there. It may take you several days, a week, a month to write out the whole thing. Continue to work in it until it is finished. :::

"It was out first double-date. My mind was already crowded with thoughts of our relationship and making it so vulnerable for the first time. After guarding against critics and opinions we were now letting these other two people in to view the inner-workings of 'us'. I was a little nervous. Jayme, of course was not. He was never one to spend much time analyzing what others thought of him.

Now, four years later there is much about that evening that I forget. And if it were not for the phone call I received I cannot be sure that I would remember any of it very well. With that phone call a seemingly insignificant night became a very memorable one.

We were driving to the bowling alley. It was cold. A mid-December evening and my body was still clenched tight adjusting to the cold leather seats while I waited for the heat to kick on. Jeremy drove. Caitlin beside him, and Jayme and I rode in the back. My cell phone rang. I looked and saw that it was my mom. I let it go to voicemail with the thought that I would call her later when I was not in a car with three other people.

The phone rang again. This time it was that dreaded ring when the thought crosses your mind, 'If they are calling again, something must be wrong'. So I answered it being careful not to convey my inward hesitations to my fellow passengers. We continued to drive past familiar places as I listened to my mother's voice on the other end of the phone, and what was a moment ago so familiar, now seemed so foreign. Distant really.

Though in reality she was no more than 20 miles from where I was, something seemed to separate us. A great divide. She began the conversation normally. "Hi honey, where are you?"I proceeded to tell her. She said something to the effect of, "i know this isn't the best time to tell you this, but Grampy passed away." She went on to tell me that his heart bypass surgery had initially gone well and recovery was going as normal, and in the midst of cracking jokes with the nurses, (a mighty trait of my grandfathers'), the monitors began to alarm and within seconds, he was gone.

3-1-08

I tried to process this information, as I placed on my brave face almost without knowing I had done it. For the sake of not ruining the evening, and not wanting to allow these people into even the shallowest of my emotions, I remained fairly non-expressive. I bottled the hurt, fought the tears and moved on with the evening. Jayme of course suspected more than I would allow him to see.

The evening commenced and apart from those few moments when the stillness sets in and pulls your mind to those deep places in the midst of your shallow activity, I did a great job of carrying on as if nothing had happened. The phone call was forgotten by all but me.

We bowled our last frame, bundled back up, and ventured once again into the cold. I don't remember anything about the ride home except that the wall I had built ad spent all night holding up was now beginning to tremble and my body ached from leaning against it so hard in a strained attempt to keep it up there.

By the time we had returned to Jayme's house the weight of my wall was caving in. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and instead turned the corner into Jayme's office. I found a blanket in the closet and a corner that looked suitable and I layed there and cried. No longer left with the choice not to feel the hurt. It overtook me.

Not long after, Jayme found me there and his presence brought me peace and comfort though I still would have liked to resist the sharing of these bare emotions if I could have."