here begins the lesson

He and I. We've been talking a lot about what we have learned. And how everything we did before that was petty and personal, now just has done "poof-ed" into the thin. There are no arguments to be had. It just isn't worth it.

I don't think I believe in lessons. Or meaning. Or "everything happens for a reason." If you're a regular reader, I think you know I believe this entire idea is a crock mixed with...organic matter.

Yet, we are still here. And we have to go on after all of the bigness of the moment.

Two years ago, we lost a child. "Alone in a room" is the entry. Right after this, I had to go away for work. Two weeks after. It was soon after, and I was tender all over. While I was gone, I completely let go of every reasonable feeling I had. I stayed up until the next morning drinking, sulking. In hot tubs and bars where you can't help but be trapped, because there's nothing else to do there. I was in the middle of nowhere doing the middle of nothing. Feeling sorry for myself and silent in the shadow. Consumed by this first big thing that had happened to me. The loss of a child. A person I wouldn't know ever.

These past two weeks, we lost someone with a name and a past and a future before her. And we watched the unbelievable grace of her mother. The Mother. Telling stories in the middle of making decisions about what would happen next, and the even next after that. She gains a brief moment of strength, I think, when we talk about what it was like to be with her daughter. Silly stuff. The person she was and will always be, and what she gave to all and the imprint of her experience on our adult selves. More profound than we knew at the time, because if you thought about it too hard...about how much you take for granted the people you love with every piece of yourself...I think you might explode, and be gone forever.

I spoke with her today, and she doesn't want us to go away. We made a tether, together. The remembering is a string of life. A cord that has some give, but keeps a joining.

"Meaning." Bullshit, that is. "Meant to happen?" I simply will not believe it.

But the lesson.

Let's hold each other close, shall we? Let us keep the bonds tight like nerves and systems and corporeal vines.

The ones who are closest.

My love, my sweetest child's father and my partner in all that is good and otherwise. He is the one I keep wrapped to my heart. He knows everything about me that is good and oh-so-very-wrong. He loves me for all the bruises on the inside and out. He tells me I am amazing.

And our friends on Tuesday nights. You're right, gorgeous; we have kind of grown up together. I can't tell you how lucky I feel that my daughter has such beautiful women around to show her how to be in this crazy world.

The Family Game Night friends who I don't get to see. I eat the leftovers he brings home. They're magnificent.

Next week, I have to go away for work again. Shortly after, a repeated verse. To a different place but for the same thing. I think I will have a balance, this time, between the disconnecting from reality and the hunt for home. It's good to be gone, I suppose. To be selfish and blaming my absence on needing to be there for some reason that isn't connected to "me." Pushing away with anger and feeling pulled by in all directions.

But I promise a balance. I swear I will remain tethered so you're never afraid. Pick out the things she will wear for the season; tell me how she was that day. Every single detail. Tell me she was perfect Tuesday night, playing on the floor of the kitchen. Face-to-face minutes where we say we wish I were home and we were together.

The lesson; it's that I have everything right in front of me. And at any moment. I could lose it all forever.