Some Kind of Grief

"But what was there to say? 

Only that there were tears. 

Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons." 

— Arundhati Roy

Tonight is one of those nights.

The kind where you can't stop crying. The kind where you lie next to him, hear his breaths slow into sleep, and consider waking him to tell him...what? You don't know what you'd say anyway. It's been said so many times already that you swallow it, fold it into a lump lodged in your throat and a knot in your stomach. You've quit talking long ago, because sterile silence still feels easier than repeating the phrases you have memorized like poetry from a heavy book. They aren't pretty words anyway.

You wander dark hallways, feeling the twists and turns of the walls until you reach your daughter's room. You sit there, a handful of tissues in your lap, and you watch her as she stirs and turns in her sleep. When she jolts a little as she hears you there, it's time to sneak out and find another refuge in the pitch black house.

You wish this night that you could call up a dear friend. She would come to your house, and you would tell her all your secrets. She would smooth your hair and tell you wise things, true things. You would sip something warm from cups that nearly burn your hands. Maybe she would have an answer.

It's the kind of night where you long for something to be close to, something to hold you and be held by you. You envision the grand talk you could have with him, the one that erases everything before this night, and paints your future with pure gold. You fantasize about that one perfect moment that makes you feel whole and right again. It occurs to you that it seems like something only possible in a movie.

Real life is different. Real life is staying up hours past the time he pulls the blankets over himself and drapes his leg across your own. Real life sometimes means crying and knowing that no one but yourself will dry your tears tonight. It's where you start to compare yourself to other couples, even those you know have problems, even those you know have problems that even they don't yet know they have.

It was a day that ended so well, but it became incredibly cold and silent in a matter of minutes. Sometimes it feels like we live this day over and over again. It's become too predictable.