The Body Changes

Surviving transitions and the ebb and flow of desire and motivation

I. I feel no hunger, I get no rest

When my best friend moved away it hurt me more than any break up I’ve experienced. I didn’t cry once in the weeks leading up to her departure - too busy googling sleep regression and scrubbing scuff marks off of the walls of her rental. The world was then, still full of noise. Last excursions, pages of research on the best restaurants in Atlanta, and some light stalking of her soon to be new coworkers.

It wasn’t until I stood face to face with her for the last time, in a closet so empty I could hear my breath echoing in the corners, that the world finally grew very quiet. We took turns facing the stark white walls to hide our grief, like two toddlers put in timeout. A carousel of effort as I tried, in vain, to control the water that had sat stagnant inside of me for too long. For someone whose life revolves so much around language, I never seemed able to communicate the right thing at the right time. So I just stood there. Bursting, turning, and smelling like rot.

I think about that day a lot lately. The unnatural shape of her orange tabby curling onto my lap for the first and last time, the strange bareness of the walls, but mostly I think about the water. The way I flooded every room I inhabited for weeks after she had left.

“Your greatest loves in life probably won’t be men. This is a deeply underrated gift.”
- Joy Sullivan

II. I watch my life through the expectations    
    of someone I’m not sure I am anymore   
    I try to move the way she moved,    
   write the way she wrote    
   I wear her skin and look in the mirror -    
   Criticizing the fit

When I finally ran out of water, I tried to take stock of what I had lost in the flood like my tax return depended on it. I filed away a neat little list of everything I expected to be returned to me. I waited to feel whole.

At work people asked about the baby and congratulated me on a successful return to “Normalcy”, as if the whole universe doesn’t transform into something unrecognizable the moment you become a mother. I suspected “Normal” was just another thing I had to wait for. So I did, but so far the only thing that I’ve returned to is my jean size. I wear them again, even if they don’t quite cling to my legs in the same way they used to.

The empty seat across from my desk smells like mold, but no one else seems bothered by it. The headaches it gives me stretches into my shoulders and cuts my productivity in half. Five months later, patience becomes a virtue I start to lose faith in.

III. There is no date on the death certificate       
      Just a blank space waiting for me to work it out       
     To bury the corpse I’ve been living inside -       
    To mourn

The body changes in unexpected ways. The jeans fit, but the hips ache every morning. The things your hands once held with such unwavering confidence, are willingly abandoned by now uncertain fingers. The water inside you stirs at strange and inconvenient times, until one day you suddenly realize that your life looks very different. You stop waiting.

I read once that Beavers are highly sensitive to the sound of running water. As long as they hear it, they will keep gathering sticks. I am a mess of twigs and bark, finally tending to those rivers.

IV. How do you hold a funeral     
     For someone you run into everyday

I don’t know if I have finished mourning, but I have picked up the shovel. I have chosen a place of burial. I am decorating the headstone with love and gratitude. It’s strange the way we resist transformation, even into something better. “Growing pains” we call it, once blessed with the clarity of hindsight.

I am waiting for something else now. New and unknown. Another thing to love. Another thing to one day bury. That part is for someone else to consider.

One flood at a time.

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What floods have you lived through lately? What rivers are you still tending?