Half/Half

I have been off work for the last hour and a half. We have eaten and undressed into the final shreds of the evening. Pants have been thrown into the washing machine. Dishes await the pre-scrub and then the dishwasher. The carpet needs a vacumming.

Jack and I cuddled for about five minutes. A record for what has been far too long, but he needs his space. There is an entirely different person forming under the body that I refuse to accept as anything other than the infant that was pulled from my womb one temperate March morning. There are ideas and wills more powerful than his mother's embrace it seems. So I let him be.

It is starting to seep in though, the reality of my not being able pull him into my lap and talk about whales any time I please. I knew it was hitting the bone when, on the city bus, I spied on a boy Jack's age sitting in his mother's lap and I instantly started crying. I blamed it on hormones, after work fatigue, fluorescent lighting. I blamed it on what I could to whip the lion in the eyes that was roaring in my ears "this is real".

This is happening.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I will be packing up the same things I came into this relationship with; clothes, books, movies, toiletries and potential. I will be moving them in with my dear friend Colleen for the time being.

Greg and Jack will be moving into the new house he purchased. It's a beautiful home, saltillo tile and wooden beams on high ceilings, a backyard that Jack can romp around in. I'm glad they'll have it.

I've decided that I'm going to sign up for overtime at work once I move out. Since I won't be coming home to Jack every night I figure it's best to not come home at all. I will make money out of the silence and eventually I will have my own place to fill with noise again.

Out of all the painful logistics comes one silver lining- we are both living in truth now. Uncompromising truth in worn out, gutted shells. Bare bones ready to be built over again with pieces of who we really are and who we hope to someday be.

I expect this move will be cathartic. I expect that there will be times when I am weighed down by the "too much-ness" of it all. I expect that out of these ashes something will grow again.

It has to. We all do.