Edgy

Without all the help that I am so accustomed to
my, our edges start to show.
Support is something I'm so good at-anticipating,
asking for, and lining up.
That this late September/ October breach to the system
has walloped me.
Left me here at 4:30 am wondering
Just where did everybody go?

Inventory:

One family moved across the country-
I counted on them for humor,
play dates, and advice.
Their loss is a low constant ache
that you cease to medicate.
A facebook wave, an address on an index card
I keep meaning to write.
We drive by your old house,
feelings of longing swirl around your driveway
with the leaves.

Then love swooped one away,
with a new career, and a house.
Changes we applaud and celebrate.
I know things will even out,
you assure me of that and how soon
we'll land back squarely on your plate.
Your tenderness and ease,
your patience, the way you make everything
great! is profound in it's absence as of late.

California.
For five weeks.
A cave it will take that long to find our way out of.
You are missed.

School started.
Senior year.
We miss the you living downstairs
the organic knowing that you are
always here.
Of course you are always.

Uncle's under pressure.
Work demands.
Time has new boundaries.
in this there needs to be some limits on nephew land.
Mom doesn't quite know where to land.
Trying not to mis-understand.

Our upstairs family
lured downstairs for homemade cookies and a check in.
Graduate school, and the new curriculum
were also at the table then.
I miss kick boxing, and
the long walks.
Dinner plans, and the mint we were going to
watch swirl around in the ice.
My kids taking over your home
while I wrote a story or
organized my life.

A relationship that was so reliable and easy
before one became two
This is a miss unlike the others.
It involves missing myself
as only I was with you.
Twenty plus years in the making.
There was no me the mom in the middle,
no elephants to tip toe over consistency and negotiation.
A larger miss, missed, missing.

And then there are the unanswered emails
and calls not because we are no longer important
or even desired company.
Things come up.
Family time takes precedence.
People do have other friends too.
Other friends have needs too.
Schedules just don't allow for impromptu
the way they used to.
I am as much to "blame" as you.

I remember the twenty-four people
crowding the room at Sammy's adoption-day celebration.
How the judge was noticeably moved by this single mother's
extended family.

And I don't have time to tell you all-
Until I wake up at 4:30am in this I miss-You-state.
and write about it in my BLOG
that I miss you.

And it is hard.

It is or was September after all.

Such a shift for everyone.

Or, an opportunity,
one could say to make new friends.
Create other kinds of support-
to follow up the calls to those two girls
from the high school looking for babysitting work.
Accept the offer for the cup of tea.
Call the friend of the friend who is a single mother too.

I did after all really enjoy the weekend-
at the soccer game alone.
The walk and roller blade in the rain to harvest
the harvested tomatoes at school.
The satisfaction of putting the boys down to bed
successfully twice.
And the visit that I finally arranged with the triplets in the park.
The two crock pot meals
that I thought were delicious anyway.

I can move beyond this inventory,
beyond the I miss you.