Somehow we'll untwist our minds from imagining this Cavalryman from being our home. Eventually we'll stop associating the walls we're in now, with our experiences.
The air will taste differently there. The scenery will be greener. The climate. humid. My heart... sad. It's inevitable. Because I've done this before, America. I've moved to a new place and had my husband leave. This isn't my first rodeo. Truth is I have no idea if it will be my last.
Each experience scars me. Each moment leaves its distinct knife wound in my flesh. I carry them around, underneath my armor. I am battle weary, America.
It's interesting how wrapping up this home, is in so many ways symbolic for wrapping up my home. Wrapping up the inner workings of my heart, packing them up, and shipping them off to a dark corner of my mind, until the days fade away. Until he and I can sit side by side, fingers entwined, and unwrap them together.
Maybe that's the worst part of it, America. I know how I get when I'm alone. I know it because he's been gone so.many.times. I struggle with the heart aching, screaming match in my mind saying over and over again "I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!" and "It's not fair!" But the "fair's" in August and the goodbyes just keep on coming, whether or not they crush me to a thousand little pieces.
This is what life is like as a sidekick. We give and we give, and we love and we love, and we get tossed to the side when the country comes calling, but we better be sure as hell strong enough to keep the home fires burning, the heart-lovin' filled up, and the emotional stability of our children potent. We are required to be resilient, and in a thousand ways I am. In a thousand ways every single one of these knife wounds have forced that bendability in to me. I can bend, morph, flex, and twist a thousand different ways. Truth is, I'm always surprised by my ability to "keep on truckin'" in the face of insanity.
I hate it. But I need it. Maybe that's the most sickening truth of it all. I need this, America. Just as much as he does. I need the hurt, I need the solitude, I need the goodbyes. Because they force me to appreciate the unity, the hello's, and the comfort. They force me to not take a single moment of fingers entwined on the sofa or in the car, for granted. They force me to see how much he fills my little pink heart with laughter and love and encouragement. I need the hurts so that I can recognize the joys.
So it's coming at me, faster than a hurricane. No matter how many windows I have boarded up, or how much stuff I've got in my emergency kit, it's going to break me. It's going to force me to my knees, in a puddle of tears and rage. Then I'm going to pick myself up, like sidekicks often do, kick some ass, and then get back in the fight so that my hero can save the day.
I will leave you with this lyric that speaks legions. "But after my dreaded beheading I tied that sucker back on with a string. And I guess I'm pretty different now, considering." -Ani DiFranco
