Things That Scare Me

Hello, world. How are you? I’m all right, I suppose. It’s October tomorrow, my favorite month of the year. That’s a bright spot, and most of my usual fall activities are back in some capacity. We are doing my cemetery play again. A Spot On the Hill is back for a 7th season. Show dates are Oct 15-16 and 22-23. I’ll post a link to tickets in an upcoming blog. I’ll be doing my True and Chilling Tales Tours again this October, too. Life is busy, per usual, but it’s all about balance because the pandemic rages on around us. It canceled some of our plans, and we’ve had to change other ones. Pivot, pivot, pivot. I’ve known more people impacted by the Delta variant than at any other time during this pandemic. I’ve also known people, some in my extended family, who have died over the last month. It’s hard to know how to process it all. It’s been hard for a while. If someone has figured it out, message me.

I’ve decided to do another writing challenge for October. The last few years I’ve done it on social media. This year, I’m going to use the blog. It will give me a reason to check in every day. I promise to keep the snippets short. That’s part of the fun, and the challenge.

There are other things going on in my life to be concerned about, beyond the pandemic. There’s illness and infirmities. There’s upheaval and turmoil in the lives of people I care deeply about. There’s someone I’m very close to that is really struggling right now with illness, and I worry that the time we have to spend together is drawing to an end. I am nowhere near ready for that. I’ll never be fully ready, but especially not now. These are the things that keep me awake at night, the things that scare me. This poem has been kicking around my head for days. I wanted to right it down somewhere.

“I Have Never Known This Life Without You”

I have never known this life without you

Which is ironic, since we’ve spent so much of it apart

Distance in age, distance in stages of life

Me in kindergarten, you having your first child

Distance in geography, Texas to Tennessee and all the spaces in between

Distance in the form of a wall, a large, monstrous, nightmare of a wall that masqueraded as love but was anything but

I feared the wall would cut us off completely, but then the light came through

A beautiful wrecking ball saved us both, saved us all

But still there was distance, college, graduate school, work commitments 

Here and there, come and go, see you for the Holidays

I’m an adult and for once we’re almost on equal footing, but not quite 

We dance to the same tune, but our steps are not in sync

We’re always slightly off in different ways




I have never known this life with out you




But I’m afraid I’ve never loved you like I should have

I’m afraid I’ve never known how to love you, how to be there for you

Was the distance too great?

Did I arrive too early? Did I arrive too late?

You introduced me to the concept of souls living multiple lives

Have we always known each other? Do we miss each other in some lives, only to be reconnected in the next?

In other lives, did we travel together, did we laugh more? Were we closer in age? Did we play Barbies on the living room floor?

Sometimes, in the dark of night, I worry this life was a mistake, that our souls weren’t supposed to cross, but here we are, and that’s why everything’s off




I have never known this life without you




In the sunlight, when I look out at the garden or see your novel on the shelf, I know we’re where we’re meant to be, even if the dance is off

You are the reason I am published

You are the reason I look at the world with a tilt of my head

You are the reason I know true love when I see it

You are the reason I talk to trees




I have never known this life without you




But oh, I am so afraid

Afraid I am woefully unprepared to support you

I say the wrong things, do the wrong things

I have no answers, only questions, and you have enough of those

I am angry at the world on your behalf

I am no Samwise Gamgee

And time feels like sand slipping through my fingers and there’s nothing I can do to stop it

Why? Why after all this distance, when we’re finally in the same place, are we still so far apart?



And I

Have Never

Known

This Life

Without

You