August 7: The tears that wouldn’t fall

I usually try to post a “Gig Tip” on Tuesdays but I just don’t have it in me today.

I’ve had a hard day.   It started with a headache this morning and missing the kids.   And also thinking about some of the challenges that they are facing which makes me sad.

Then I had lunch with an ex-colleague from over 12 years ago.   It was wonderful to see her.   It was wonderful to TALK with her.  She has gone through a divorce and there is so much in what she was saying that was EXACTLY like how I have been feeling.  It was sooooooooooo good to talk to her.  To actually TALK and have a conversation and FEEL and feel sympathetic and understand.   She is wonderful.  Her outlook is wonderful.  How she expresses herself is wonderful.  And how she captured how I am feeling was eye-opening.  I am not used to talking to people who understand me.   I’m really not.  I was so pleasantly surprised today at lunch – even through the sadness – the connection I felt so strongly with someone whom I have not seen in over 12 years – I am not sure just how much we actually have in common.   There is probably close to a decade of years between us… she has no kids…. she is early in her career… yet we shared a connection and a conversation that resonated so strongly in me that I was almost swept off of the booth I was sitting in.

So it was a good lunch, but also a difficult one that opened me up leaving me exposed.

I tried to do some work – I actually had a really productive day.

Tuesday is trash day at home.  So my normal routine is to go through the yard and fill up that Green bin as much as I can.  There is so much in my place in terms of weeds and yard work that honestly I need more bins.  So I went around with my wheel barrel and started to pick up the piles of old branches and dead leaves from my hedge-clipping frenzy from several weeks ago.   I was sad picking up the dead decaying branches and getting them ready for trash.  Clearing out my space, my yard, getting rid of the branches that do not fit in this yard anymore.

I felt like crying.  I wanted to cry.  I even tried to force the tears.  My eyes would well up but the tears would not fall.  I need to get this out….

On my way to the bin I stopped at my compost tumbler and added the decaying leaves.   I then decided to take some of the leaves and crumble them on top of some of my garden – my garden that has yet to bear ANY fruit for me.   Am I watering for nothing?  Am I trying too hard with this new distraction/hobby?   Can ANY of these plants PLEASE create a freaking berry or something that I can eat?!?!??!?!   And then on my way crumbling up those leaves, I stopped when I got to my corn.  The 3-inch seedlings that my neighbor gave to me are now more like 3-4 feet high.  And I looked down and couldn’t believe it but there is this little corn-cob thingy starting to grow out of the biggest of the stalks.   I am amazed.   I then become hopeful, a little.

I feel like so much of what has happened in my life is such a waste.   I feel like those dead branches and I feel like those crumbling leaves being tossed aside but still I guess useful in some way for other things living.   I don’t know how I got here.   I don’t know how the essence of who I am got so misguided and depleted.    How can this happen to me?  When I try so hard?   How?   How did I let it happen?

And now the tears are finally falling.  So I’m glad I did not try to force a Gig Tip tonight.  I’m glad that I’ve had this chance to get this out.   I’m so happy that I had a chance to connect with my friend today at lunch.  I am so thrilled that she was speaking sentences that I could have said myself.  I am so happy that I found someone who understands.

I am thankful that I made a real connection today with someone.   But I am alone here now.   I am trying to see the potential for something new and something positive – like those damn corn stalk thingies.  But it is so hard.  So hard when you feel so alone and misunderstood by so many.