since you didn't ask; day I part I

when you're in the air looking down everything is the same.

and so it goes with knowledge and reality. knowing is one thing, experiencing is quite another. it's so easy to know. it's the hands on that fucks with the balance and offers the front row glimpse into the full silly mortal.

i think about this as the plane is making its final descent. i look down and see the city and area i once loved so deeply. a city i was a newlywed in, a newly adult in, divorced in, became a mother in, almost died in, found a life in, married and built a family and a life in a house only to have it taken away in. and now, a city that will represent, in time shorter than i'd like, my greatest broken heart.

as we touch down i wish more than anything that my kids were here. to feel the duke's quiet go with it resolve, to see wingman's fully open face at the sadness and wonder and excitement of it all. to feel the husband's confident and knowing hand in mine.

i am keeping open to everything. to finding the grace, to embracing what needs it...to...being. my sister has been doing the heavy lifting and i am the ham handed interloper in my own extended life at this point. but i am open to it. all of it. or i will be, as soon as i can get a little sleep.

in the meantime, on the plane, i am touching down and landing. and with every fiber of my being i want to be anywhere but here. i want to shout, turn me around! there's been a mistake! i want to wake as if from one of my very real dreams. i want to be in a world where the first time i see my father in nearly five years that it is also not the last.

i wish on the stars i can't see and i call to anyone who will listen, in the tiniest 'i am in a public space' whisper, anywhere but here. right now. anywhere.

and even as i say it i know i have the luxury to do so. that all evidence to the contrary, i am so very lucky. to be here. to be. here.

x.