It doesn't mean I don't love you...

Just because I'm not happy doesn't mean I don't love you.

Why can't vows be about promises kept yesterday, or honoring the present, and hoping for the best for the future? But always allowing that life will happen, always allowing that we can't know who we will be in five years, or ten, or a hundred. Expectation of future happiness, expectation of knowing a future that can't possibly be known, that's what screws us up.

"Nothing to win and nothing left to lose."

Yea, that about sums it up. Emma screamed every night at that moment just before falling asleep. Of joy, of sorrow, she was never quite sure. The scream was mostly in her mind, some stutter in her breath, sometimes no audible sound could be heard. She couldn't be sure though. Like a tree falling, if no one was there, did it make a sound? No one was ever there. Release the expectation that anybody would ever be there. Release the expectation that she'll ever get over Jeremy. Release. Release. Release.

And it was so hard to watch Clay walk away. But she was learning to release. And it was easier to release the things that she had only held for a short time. It was easy to let go of the expectations that he might stay, that he might fill some void that was caught in her chest. A cavernous void that made her heartbeat sound hollow and loud, made her feel a shortness of breath, and almost hear the rumble of some hunger deep inside. Easy to let go of the idea that it could someday be satisfied.

Harder to release broken dreams, broken promises, this broken life. Seems like it should be the other way around, she would often think. Part of her knew that it was the only way out, but she didn't want to be released from the memory of him. Of the sadness of not feeling him in the bed next to her.

How quickly they had gotten used to each other, and even in her sleep, she had moved gently, slowly, to not hurt his leg, his hip. Some part of her was always aware of him. That feeling hadn't gone away, that awareness was there every moment and that was why she couldn't breathe. Awareness of him had turned into an ache. The ache was all she had left, and she couldn't let that go too.

At the funeral, she, of course, had received kind, well-intentioned words. Only those that knew her, knew she and Jeremy together, didn't offer any words. They knew nothing they could say would ease anything. Hugs, warm smiles, and the understanding that they could not understand at all, was all they could offer her. Now, nearly two years later, they were still at a loss and that unknowingness was uncomfortable. The calls were fewer and fewer between and she was more alone, more often, though that loneliness was sort of secondary to the overbearing weight of sleeping, eating, waking, breathing without Jeremy.

It was remarkable how compartmentalized her life had become, how separate she felt from herself. Every once in a while, during a presentation or meeting, a part of her would watch herself - smiling, laughing, and interacting - with surprise and wonder at the audacity, the nerve of that empty shell. She thinks she's fooling them, she would say of herself to herself. And she's probably right, but she's not fooling me. I know what she'll be like when she goes home and can't even see through the tears enough to put the key in the door and get in the house. I know how many times she's considered moving the chair from the library into the entryway so she would have somewhere to sit when she collapsed to the floor, nine out of ten days, her legs unable to hold her for one more second. The shell worn out completely from the sheer effort of living without a spirit or any life force at all.