Suffocation flower.

It’s all too easy to find yourself lost within a spring morning.

Come on over.

Before the gardening but after work, a sentence was given to me.

I digested it, as best as I could. Of course it was a shock. The roles, reversed. This was/is something that I do, it’s not something that I see from him.

It served me right to get a dose of my own medicine.

Surprisingly, after the initial shock left, I was happy for him. Asking for the details, helping him plan.

The gardening began. Trimming of trees, pulling of weeds, clean up, and sun kissed skin.

Nothing tastes better after an afternoon of sweat and dirt than an ice cold beer.
We sat on the porch, me on the swing, him on the bench. We listened to the music coming from the party across the street. We heard all the kids on the block screaming and laughing. We watched our neighbors do idiotic things.

By nightfall, his attitude changed a bit. Maybe he was nervous, maybe he wasn’t expecting my acceptance, maybe he was just tired.

I knew he wouldn’t want to talk, so I asked if he wanted to play a video game. Something to get his mind off of whatever it was. Nothing distracts a person like killing aliens and blowing up soldiers.

It helped for an hour of two. Trash talk, laughter, cursing tornadoes.

And then, he got close to me. Lightly put his nose to mine, and asked a question.

I didn’t want to respond, it was too delicate and I have the tendency to be harsh. Instead, I asked the same question right back. He became sad. I’ve only seen that happen once before and it scared me. He’s always so stoic, so strong, so unaffected. The sadness didn’t make sense, and I wanted to wash it away, but was unable.

So he said, “Shar, I just, I need something to make me feel any amount of worth. I’m depleted. No confidence, nothing.”

It was almost as if he was speaking gibberish. I was stunned. This sudden openness knocking me back a few steps.

I didn’t say anything, there’s nothing to say. The way that you view a person isn’t how they see themselves no matter how many times you try to bash it into their skulls.

He climbed on top of me and put his head onto my heart and he went on, “I just want something safe. Something comfortable. Something that requires no maintenance. and comes naturally.”

I knew he was talking about what we used to have, but I didn’t want to have that conversation tonight. Not when he was vulnerable. So alone.

I put my fingers in his hair and rubbed his head, his neck, the top of his shoulders. I was quiet for a few minutes, waiting to see if he’d go on, waiting to say my part.

So I said to him, “Everyone is looking for that, or some variation. Sometimes you get it quickly, sometimes it happens after a long while. You can’t get there without trying, but you’ve been doing that lately. You’ve taken a huge step. I’m proud of you.”

He lifted his head and put his nose back to mine and his eyes turned cloudy. He asked me the question again.

I answered him this time, but first telling him what I am and am not, and what I will and will not do.

His response surprised me, “You’ve never been just a —- to me. You’ve always been so much more. You’ve been everything when I needed it. A fighter, a nurturer, a mischievous kid, an irrefutable brainiac, a… You’ve just been it all.”

So we stood, and after a while, I think we faded into the darkness.
My eyes were closed, but I could hear him blinking.

It shocks me still, amazes me to no end, that I can still have one part of my history. Maybe not the full history, but the best part of it. I tried to weigh these things against one another, but forgot to turn on the gravity in my mind. I suppose I’ve always thought full history was the only thing that mattered… but I’m coming to see, with all the memory loss around me, that most of the time, it means very little.

He’s the last of them, you know.
Sitting in the audience, making up his mind.
Do I exit or do I remain seated?
He’s the last of them.

So it sings.

After the hush of winter, spring seems rather loud.

The birds have come out to play. Anymore, it seems they don’t chirp or sing. They scream. They’re so eager to be speaking again. And it wakes me, every morning at six.

When I step outside, they are everywhere. In the trees that line the street. Scattered through lawns searching for food. Perched on rooftops casting the most wonderful shadows.

… And I sit reminded, because anymore, everything reminds me of something.

***

Recently, I’ve been sifting through my childhood. Memories surface that I haven’t thought about in years. Covering the spectrum of emotions and offering definitions of who I am, who I was.

I find myself telling others the stories, as you may have noticed.

Of seizures and wooden spoons, of standing up for family, of the burning school house, of first confession, of first broken heart and first date, of her and him, and him and her.

I can’t stop, and I’m not sure I want to, even if I could. I’ve never really excelled at problem solving, but I feel like I have many clues around me and I’m desperately searching for the culprit that developed me into me. Memory to memory, link to link.

I know I’m in there somewhere…

Just bear with me.