I know folks who are like teflon - where everything just slides away, off of them, failing to stick, to alter their composition.
But that's not me. I am an old pan- still useful, but all the cooking, and simmering, and melting, and slow roasting has worn down my edges, my center and the stuff just sticks to me. Ha! Who am I kidding - if you know me, you know, I have never been teflon. I grab onto every fiber of issues and people and work worth doing, and I stick to it; I care .... a lot...sometimes too much.
And you know what, I wouldn't change that - even when it causes me pain that others choose not to feel.
Putting up laundry this evening, I found my husband's Dad's Day Theta t-shirt. It's green. The collar has frayed allowing the ribbed band to open as if the shirt had more to give. There's a hole at the base of the neck on the back side. I could see the t-shirt seams as the shirt lay inside out rumbled on my bed. Finding the bottom of the shirt, I pushed both hands through looking habitually for the sleeves so I could return the shirt to its hanger, right-side out. Instead, my right hand shot through the side of shirt. Instead of the confines of a sleeve, my hand found a gaping hole just beneath the right sleeve, emptiness, way too much space.
And I let my heart break, again ... still.
My face grimaced and my eyes shed tears, as I redirected my arm to the sleeve it should have found. My mind reconciled the hole my hand found and the hole that remains in our lives.
It's just a t-shirt; my man will never wear it in public again, but it will hang in his closet and cover his broad shoulders each Saturday until every thread has failed. And then, I bet he asks me to mend it - wish I could mend our hearts...
I will never be teflon, and this will always hurt - as if it were yesterday, as if 2, 248 days hadn't passed since we heard her laugh, heard her scoff, heard her challenge her brother, heard her say, "Hi Mama."
#golighttheworld