It's November first. Leaves blow around on the trees, still green, cut up among gray and white clouds and patches of blue sky. I have no topic with which to begin save my fixation on future pain, potential loss. Abandonment, failure. It's difficult to stay in the moment. I still recognize joy. It envelops me in much the same way grief pours out of me, all overwhelming. But I vacillate between the saturated emotions of love and the rictus of anxiety that lives in my muscles, fueled by obsessive, intrusive thoughts. Is everyone like this? I can't let go. Is it my age? My sex? My long history of broken connections? I'm building a home, a household, a family. Is that healthy? Or is the question moot? I belong nowhere else. I have no other refuge. I'm building a refuge. For him, for me. With no experience, no models. I pull endless ends together, never knowing where the middle is, knowing only that I want to overcome all obstacles, master all daunting tasks. For him, for me. I still look down Washington Avenue on my way home from work, at the side- walk in front of the university, where he said yes. The happiest moment of my life, when the whole world opened up. Bloomed. And we did it. Together. We made a household. Together. We negotiated a respectful roommate relationship. Only gradually did it become a tenderer thing. A mother and son. My love for him is boundless. It encompasses worlds. Every moment of pain and grief and fear, every step inside the vast terrain of emptiness that has defined my life for forty- seven long years, was worth it, to be here, with him. Even if I fail. Even if I'm abandoned. Because I'm blessed with his trust, his faith. How can I do less than my best, to shelter, to provide. Let at least that much go to him, to that beautiful man, that beautiful child. How could I have known the day I met him how he would migrate through my soul to take up residence in my old, ugly, burnt up heart? To dissolve so much of what I thought I knew and leave resilience in its wake? To become home. Kin. Family. I want him in my life more than I've ever wanted anything in that life. It's November first. It's a new lease. It's a second year in our home. It's a third year of loving Eli.
December 13, 2021
