So my day started early today. I had coffee with a friend. I knew there was something coming when she made the request. I made her this sorta silly un-promise in a kinda non-conversation one spring night before things changed. I had agreed to let her lead into something neither of us really understood the depth of. She had cancer. I feared losing her and I spent a weekend crying until I could come up fighting ...yet following. So I didn't ask why she wanted to have coffee at 7 am on a Monday morning. She isn't a morning person. I was on to her, but I was blind sided anyway.
As life often is; a variety of troubles had to add to the mix. Life though lovely is always complex. Well she weathered those days and did it most graciously. Or maybe it was that she kept a distance, taking the worst of it on her own. The news recently was good and I let go of the long sigh I had been holding in. I let my guard down a tiny wee bit. I hold my big cards close to my chest. She, I learned today is a big card. I am losing her and in a way to cancer. I think her experience this spring set in motion the things she thought she'd like to do and moved them to the category of things she was going to do. I guess she woke up and decided to quit sleep walking through life (as we have discussed we are both prone to do). She has decided the time has come to direct her days, not to just pass from one to the next. I see now that she gets that you can never really start over in the same old place. So she is going to move several states away and be deliberate with the minutes and hours in a day, not the weeks and months of routine that had been adding up to a year. It will hurt to let go, but it will hurt more to hold her.
So as I thought of letting go today, I had some sad thougths. But I think the sadest part was feeling like I had lost an anchor to where I live. It is no secret, I am not really at home here in this place. It is rural and country and bible belt in bush country. It is not me. I can take the country, but not here. Today it was like one of the ropes holding me here snapped. I think that is the hard part. She made here tolerable.
I had to drive to my Superman's house to borrow his old red truck to move some furniture around. So I drove over after work and we were sitting on the couch and I told him...you are what holds me here. Now any that know me, know I have struggled with my feelings for this man. But today, I realized I learned my own lesson from cancer. If you have someone you love, love em. It doesn't matter what you call it, it doesn't matter what you say. Just be true. So as I told him, he said that is a lot of responsibility you are laying on me. He didn't say it like he was trying to widdle out of something, but like he understood I felt bound to him by my own thoughts. I told him it wasn't no responsibility, just how I felt. He smiled but I knew he would.
So today in this craizy (yes, that is deliberate) roller coaster ride... I have let go and held on. It seems..."comes a time when we are drifting, comes a time when you settle down ... comes a time...comes a time.
I wish you the best Sister Friend...Anchor girl!
