Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-05-11 - 9:34 a.m.

Empathy

A good cyber-friend is separating from her husband this week. They have kids. She's young, younger than I am. I don't know anything about the marriage, but I know she hurts. Telegrams from the land of suck.

I wrote a few myself, a few years back.

I'm fine.

No, you're not fine. You're a country mile from fine. What you are is maintaining, and that's okay. You need to do that, but you're not fine. Someday, you will be.

I'm scared.

Yes. Terrorized, dry-mouthed, with adrenaline surges that wake you from even a half-hour's fitful sleep. He'll take the kids. We won't have enough money. What about....? How will I...? Stray sharpened shards of marriage lodge in your brain without warning. The taxes. Your in-laws. Every thought has razor edges; nowhere is safe. It hurts to breathe. It hurts not to breathe. The world has come to this bizarre adrenaline-frozen place, skewed off its axis, stretched and distorted beyond recognition. There is no relation to yesterday, no sense of tomorrow, beyond the panic. It's all gone horribly wrong.

What will happen to me?

You'll recover. You know it, and I know it, and all your friends know it, and it means nothing. Nothing at all. How could it? How could it possibly matter, this stupid little ray of good cheer your friends keep trying to shove down your throat? What does some idiot Pollyanna picture of the happy self-reliant single parent basking in her independence have to do with this unbelievable crushing pain? Shut up, shut up, shut up. Oh, leave me alone. No - wait. Please.

How can I go on?

I don't know. You do. You just do. You go on, and you go numb, and you go crazy, and you don't cry when you think you should, and then you cry when you think you shouldn't, full of wrenching animal noises and snot and deep-heart howling. You stuff a towel in your mouth. You hold your children when you can. You hate, and you use that hate to get up and wash the dishes, and then you lean on the counter and your legs shake. People are kind, and that makes you cry harder. And then it's the next day, and the next. I don't know. It happens.

No, really, I'm fine.

Yes; soon.

�

previous - next

�