Cleaning House

December 5, 2013

She woke up that day knowing her marriage was over.  She had told herself, in just that matter-of-fact a manner that it was, the night before. Nothing was more pathetic than a woman begging and pleading a man not to leave, especially when those pleas were so brusquely rebuffed. Now what?

She stood in the middle of her living room surveying her surroundings. As if getting over her failed marriage was a chore to be tackled. What first? Maybe sweep her broken heart into a dustpan and throw it away? There. Next scrub away the 17 years they built together. Nice and shiny. Now just mop away the broken promises, the shattered life and feelings of worthlessness. Well. Wouldn’t that be easy?

If only manual labor would make her heal.

Instead, she knew she had to go through it. She would have to travel through shit. She would have to do countless hours of introspection and face the darkest parts of herself, truthfully. It was going to be so painful. She wavered for a second. Maybe there was something on tv that would take her mind off of her problems. Maybe she should wake her youngest son up from his nap so she didn’t have to be alone. No. She knew that she had to sit with her thoughts and her feelings and let them crash into her, seep into every fiber, and accept them. She needed to learn to surrender, to be alone.

Alone but not abandoned.