Mend Again

Yes, I know yesterday’s poem was sappy, but the wound was still very fresh. Each day helps a bit as I work in my yard and play with the puppies and realize that one day I will be truly happy again.

My routine has a hole. I picked up working out again, writing everything down, playing with puppies and making my house a home, but there is still something missing. So I wrap my arms around the poetry project and force my words to come out. I also have this book that shares 366 prompts for other writing projects inspiring at least 30 minutes of pen to paper a day. So now I will not only write a poem (hopefully not too sappy) each day, but I will journal other notes to dust of the cobwebs of my creativity.

It’s interesting how a bit of heart break can create something so dynamically new and different. A few years back (the last time my heart was broken) I continued on my journey for something new and found it in Portland, OR. I love that town. I explored for five days all by myself, meeting new people, enjoying great food and letting my heart fill with joy as it mended. There were the most dramatic waterfalls, afternoons at the Chinese Gardens, strolls through the Rose Gardens, wanderings along the Columbia River, hours awakened in Powell’s Bookstore and the constant companionship of my friends Chris and Guy over the phone line. I ate the best tomato bisque, drank only the Pinots of the region and ate artisan cheese with seasonal apples. Only once did I fall apart, and it was in my hotel room 3 days into the trip when I felt both lost and alone. But even then, 4,000 miles away from anyone who loved me, I let it out and had another day of adventures. This time I lack funds for a big trip and have too much responsibility to leave, but I know that I can mend again. But I always need a plan.

It’s all about staying busy. That was my intention in the first place when I was curbed. Thankfully work is plentiful and tasks at home, with two puppies, are always busy. But those moments when there is a drop of quiet or a lonely Beatles song playing in my head (For No One) I get all teary-eyed and feel that familiar pain in my chest. It is like having an illness. You know you will get better, you just have to go through all the painful treatment to get there, like cancer. You may want to give up from time-to-time when your head pounds and all your mind’s eye can see is loneliness, but you have to trust the love docs when they say that this too shall pass.
It is funny though how certain songs are the soundtrack to my heartache. With Brian it was “The First Cut Is The Deepest” and this reiterated for years afterward. Even now, when I hear it on the radio or in a movie, I am dramatically regressed to a bawling mess. This time it is “For No One” since that was playing in his truck for weeks and each time it bounces around my brain I just want to curl up in a ball and let the world pass me by. Yet that album also has “Here There And Everywhere” a love song like no other, and “Good Day Sunshine” to balance out the pain of the first. Even now I wish it would stop.