S t r e t c h

Our show opened this weekend and we performed last night and tonight. The performances went well despite some technical difficulties and we have already improved since Saturday evening. Also, despite the fact that rising tensions caused me to never want to do this show again, I can honestly say that I would do it again if I am invited back next season. Preparation for this show is very difficult and tedious and during the process, I forget how much of a payoff performing it is. It’s all good.

I had a bit of a backslide last night. The director from the show snapped at me, which is a common experience when tensions are running high. I experienced a delayed reaction, in the form of grief, which occurred last night after I got home. I had to put the tears on hold until after the show and until after I had helped pack up the equipment. When I got home, I fell onto my bed and purged my emotions. I thought, “Chris would never have treated me that way.” which is what I always say when somebody is less than nice to me. I wish I could stop that pattern, but I was so upset and exhausted when I got home that I didn’t possess the desire to fight my grief.

Chris came to absolutely every one of my performances. I have a tough time with the fact that he can’t come anymore, that I experience euphoria on the stage and then walk outside onto the lonely city street and drive home to my empty apartment. Columbus Avenue is a very lonely place at 10:30 PM on a Sunday night.

As I sat idling at a red light, I suddenly realized that I no longer remember how walking around Boston with Chris felt. I couldn’t quite call the memory of the feeling of us together, walking. I became heavy-hearted. I didn’t cry though. I still haven’t cried.

If an elastic is used for a long enough time, its elasticity decreases and the rubber becomes dry. Suddenly, one day, the band has to be wrapped around two times in order to hold its contents.

I have reminisced about rage-inducing grade school games of keep-away involving me, my hat and a bully and the rage and frustration that ensued. I felt that rage and frustration for the longest time with regard to Chris’ absence. For a long time, I felt that he was being kept from me but that eventually, I would get him back once I was on the verge of rage-induced insanity. I began to feel that way this weekend because he’s not at my shows, but then my rage trailed off. The elasticity of my anger has diminished and even though my brain won’t easily go there, I am now beginning to surrender myself to the fact that no amount of screaming or raging is going to bring him back. My “elastic” has been stretching toward wellness and then snapping back to grief for so long and tonight, there was no back-snap. The rubber gave way and stayed stretched around my grief, with a larger barrier than before and I was much too exhausted to scream tonight. My threshold for grief has expanded, like the elastic.

I’m not going to get my way, this time. It doesn’t matter that one of the song’s I chose is about a spirit coming back to comfort her surviving husband. Chris can’t see that, and even if he could, he couldn’t come back just because I paid him that tribute.

I’m okay lately. I get sad thinking about Chris and wondering how I am ever going to “get there” again, “there” being “ a loving, close, unconditional relationship.”

Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.