Distractions

Hello.

Sorry I’ve been gone so long. I’ve been distracted by
Dirty pennies
Sweaty string cheese in my purse
Pale spiders
The tiny new freckle on the top of my left foot
Angry in-grown hairs on my body
The way apples make my hands waxy as I wash them, and
How I always have to wash my hands after washing apples
Muffled voices though too-thin walls
Dust particles dancing in beams of light
Shadows and silhouettes
The ghost cats I always hear but rarely see
Baby snails
Hairlines
Hair loss
The hair art I make on my shower wall
Words
And non-words, too.
But recently—especially at night—I have been distracted by

The quiet,

Which has been my roommate this week while Mike has been not-with-me.

It used to be a familiar friend but now it makes me afraid, but only a little, and only deep on the inside in a wet sticky place beneath my spleen. But even worse than the quiet is the missing-him-ache I have in the lower ventricles of my heart. Don’t ask me how I know that’s where missing comes from—I just know that’s where all of the missing feelings are born. And when your heart is too full of missing, it tumbles out of your heart and fills up your stomach, and even if you’re full, it makes you feel empty.

I have been afraid of the quiet and full of missing all week. 

But every day

I sing silly songs about chocolate milk and poison oak and spiders that drink apple cider because these are songs I made up on our honeymoon. They make me laugh. If Mike were at home, he would laugh at them too (because he always does).

I play the same Iron and Wine record (usually the B side) on our record player because it reminds me of Mike.

I look at the blue shaving foam residue on the bottom shelf of our medicine cabinet. It reminds me that he will be back and that his can of shaving cream will go in that place. That light blue ring misses him, too, and that makes me feel a little better.

And every night

I stay up as late as I can to distract myself from the quiet and the missing.

I rub my feet together and wiggle my toes and slide them over to his side of the bed where his feet would be, because this is how my feet say goodnight.

I sleep with my bedside light on, curled away from where he is supposed to be because I don’t like that his side is empty.

But he is coming home soon.  Knowing this makes the quiet less scary and the missing shrink a little (but only a little). 

Knowing this makes me less distracted, which is good because there are some things I want talk about.

Later.

When I'm not distracted at all.