Dear Patrick

Your love balances between extremes. An emotional seesaw is holding our life ransom. Teetering left and right between the phases of your mind. Six weeks. Complete chaos for six weeks.

When you allow yourself to sit in the emotions, to feel; you cry and express your love for me. Your fear of making the wrong decision.Your guttural need to work things out. "I can't picture a life without you in it", comes pouring out so often. I see your pain. I share your confusion. I try to stay disconnected, but your tears are like a drug my heart can't say no to. I love you too much to sit and watch you suffer. I offer support and comfort. I wipe your tears and run my fingers across your face. They find their usual place at the base of your neck. The spot they have called home for 15 years. Our eyes meet, foreheads connect, my hope rises and my heart opens. I let you in.

Inevitably, the other shoe drops. Your cyclical thinking takes over. Negativity seeps into the crevices of hope we have carved. I cannot break through the years of toxicity and self loathing that have built a fortress around your heart. You isolate yourself, withdraw into your mind. Blow out any spark of warmth with a gust of cool aggression.

My heart cannot survive this ride. Being thrown between hope and heartache. I love you unconditionally. I do. I would walk through Hell and back...I feel like I have. I am slowly realizing that I need to have these things reciprocated. I need more. I am more. I deserve more.

In Like A Lion, Out Like A Lamb

It is cold & blustering, I am frozen to the core. No matter what I do; I cannot seem to warm up. My surroundings are slippery at best & I can barely keep my balance.

I wish I were talking about the weather. And yet, I am describing my life. What is supposed to be my life. It seems surreal...a place beyond reach that I am witnessing by accident. I feel like I should hush my voice, hold me breath, & duck behind a tree.

The Winter squalls came in with thunderous winds & swept my world away. I will spend (have spent) some energy grieving. I will cry & scream at God (I apologize). My faith will be (has been) shaken. I will, however, hold my head high, stick my feet in the muck & hold firm against the storm.

 I am a strong believer that we are never faced with challenges we cannot overcome. As much as I may question God's intentions...his plans; my heart knows (somewhere beneath the sadness) that there is a light coming around the bend.

Although this storm came barreling in with a roar that held the capacity to shatter. My hope...my belief, is that it will dissipate. That the sun will come out, the ice will melt, & the Spring rains will wash clean all the debris left by such a harsh Winter.