Worn Through

A kind of tired wears on me.  It is not just in the way my drab clothes hang upon my petite frame, exhaustion echoes loudly across my face yelling keep away, I’m worn out.

I’m so sick of traffic.  Anyone else sick of the same old shitty traffic?

I brought home take-out today,  I’ll be able to eat for days off it.  I’m reminded of the days when I took care of my mom.  She would go through times where she would not eat what I fed her.  She never did eat very much,  I would have to bribe her with chocolate or treats in order to get her to take her medicine.  Because if I couldn’t get her to take her medicine, what good was I?

So, I would get take-out just to try to get her to eat.  Honestly, it was always a great deal of work.  I would feel exhausted afterwards, but I felt as if I accomplished something at least.

I would have gotten her up, bathed, and dressed.  Given her a ride, so she was out of the house and out of bed.  She would have walked some instead of lying down in bed.  Then, she would have had some real food.

It wasn’t just the drive and getting out of the house.  She loved people.  She worked with people her whole life, international students, refugees, and children.  All shapes, all sizes, all colors, all ethnicities, she truly loved people.

She would reach for people, talk to strangers even after her strokes she never changed, she never altered.  She loved people and she wanted to make sure they – whomever she came across – knew she loved them.  Maybe it was her belief in God, maybe she was compensating for a lack of love in her own life, maybe she saw something no one else did.  I don’t know, but she loved people.

They say the apple doesn’t fall from the tree, and that’s true.  Sometimes people might find that hard to find in me as it was my job to protect her which sometimes meant asserting a different approach.

It’s a kind of terribleness to no longer have someone to care for.  I’m like a mother without a child, a nurse without a patient, or a solider without a fight.

Given my present circumstances that continue to keep those who know and care about me far, far away, I believe my loss to be unrecoverable.

Once, I went into a store and I thought I would get married there.  I can’t explain that.  Perhaps there was an unfair advantage that persuaded me into believing that story, I’m not sure.  But, I believed it.  And I believed it would help to marry him.

I will cry when I am ready, but not before then.  They will be my tears and no one else’s.  Don’t push your luck, buddy.