on fear and hope...

There's always too much noise, followed by too much silence.  Days and hours spent shushing, chasing, comforting and consciously trying to not check out followed by darker days which are filled with silence, alcohol, solitude and bad choices. 

My son is still so young and so alive...and deserves so much more of me than I ever seem to be able to give.  Turn down the radio in the Jeep.   Talk to him.  Leave that phone on the table.  Turn off the TV.  I repeat these things silently to myself half of the week.  Sometimes I get it right, other times I don't.  This time is short. Everyone else can wait.  I can also wait.  I tell myself this frequently when days get hard.

He senses that I am lonely lately and asks me sometimes whether I will have a wife or a husband one day. His eyes always seem bluer to me when he asks these questions.  He has been asking with increasing frequency lately.   It seems, on some days, that the color of his eyes can penetrate my soul. Why are his eyes so blue, I wonder?  I fear the day that he realizes his power over me.  When he gazes directly at me, I can't withhold any of my truths.  It feels like a punch to the gut, every time.  I always stop and look at him directly and say that I don't know, but I surely hope so.  I surely hope so.

I look around at the world, thinking that I can do this again.  Want.  Desire.  Trust.  And some days I almost convince myself that I will.  There has been a girl who taught me that my mind was beautiful and my body worthy of respect and appreciation.  She reminded me that love was patient and kind and I almost let myself fall.  Almost. Only I didn't, before it was too late.  There was a boy, cocky and brash, who reminded me that I could laugh and roar and that freedom was something worth celebrating.  He made me feel invincible and sexy.  And I almost let go, except I didn't.  And there have been others, some short lived, some continuing, who's mere words or gaze, tempt me to crack open my rusty heart, to try again. Only so far I haven't.  But I think about it. I continue to think about it.  

For now I remain scattered between noise and silence on so many things.  There is a child who relies on me to be his light and during that time, there is no room for continual darkness.  Fear and hope.  Noise and silence.