Something missing

Photo: StartSkins.com

At first it was security. I wasn’t missing a safeguard against burglars, rapists, or other home invaders. I longed for and worried over what would happen if there was an emergency. Hours spent imagining me in a hospital bed following a car accident; who would come? 

“who would come?”

Certainly friends would pay a passing interest, but I’d likely end up in my mom’s house 1,200 miles away from the life I was living now. I no longer had the security of someone to hold my hand while I, or we, receive bad news from a doctor. No one to take me home weak and broken and play scrabble with while I rest on the couch. Nobody to fulfill these hopefully-never visions.

Then an avalanche of loss swept me away for months. One thing after another, my dog was no longer mine, lost to the divorce. I didn’t own the car I’d bought when my dad died, which was trivial but oddly and deeply sad. I had no bearing in his life any more, he didn’t feel the need to inform me of anything. While dating I realized I’d lost my ability to trust anyone that even resembled a romantic interest.

Sorting out that heap was hard work, like trying to make sense of a kindergartner’s finger painting from the paper’s point of view; messy and obfuscating. When I find myself lingering near coupling thoughts, I'm always wanting the details of a relationship. 

Someone with whom to negotiate trivial favors on lazy afternoons, “I’ll only agree to making us another pot of tea if you promise to rub my butt upon return.” 

Someone that would run their fingers through my hair while telling me a semi-boring story.

Someone that might lose things and I would magically know where to look, “Your wallet is most assuredly in the door of the car, race you there.”

Someone with whom to invent fantastical tales about trivial delights we’d shared, “Clearly this cabbage slaw was flown in from Napa and diced by pelicans mid-flight for these remarkable tacos.”

Someone with a chest for laying my head upon and a heart beating inside, each rhythm marking a moment they chose to be with me.

These little scraps of absence in my life are blowing together now. A tiny cyclone of a world I don’t have. They circle one another closely, but I keep looking past them trying not to notice their growing number.