From the Heart of Stage Two

I guess I should be grateful that I'm through Stage One, especially since in the darkest of the dark that sometimes seemed unlikely, but strangely this week I rather miss it. Of course there's that it was closer to my old life, the one I still miss and think of as my real life, but there is also a sort of purity to Stage One.

Stage One is all loss, all the time. Stage One is crying and throwing up and then crying some more. Stage One is clawing your way through each day, just amazed that you're out of bed, dressed and able to drive. Stage One is everything gone-appetite, music, home-a Sherman's march to the sea devastation where each thing then must be reclaimed, slowly, bit by bit.

Stage Two is different. Stage Two is the first tender shoots poking out. Stage Two is learning what you get to reclaim and what is gone for good. Stage Two is to begin to look, speculatively, at new people and to imagine, incessantly, being touched again. Stage Two is the feeling that you should be outfitted with a sandwich board that says 'handle me with care'. Or that on one side and 'approach with caution' on the other the better to be swung around by the wind of your ever changing moods. Stage Two is also 'yes porter, I have baggage' and 'you're going to need a bigger boat'.

Stage Two can be tricky-feeling okay gets to be a habit that causes any sudden 'oh shit' turbulance to bring you to your knees. I had some turbulance this week when I found myself lacking the requisite abandon necessary for forging something new.

Me? Lacking abandon?

Of my many relationship flaws, all now carefully and painstakingly catalogued, abandon had always been a strong suit. For me-who's shown up on doorsteps naked, given musical instruments (years before "Once"), serenaded in front of a room full of people-to hit the pedal and get nothing in that department was nothing short of jaw droppingly stunning. That full bore, all or nothing way is the only way I know and if I don't have that anymore, if that has been taken from me too, what I am left with? And what then am I good for?

Given that, it's hard not to see myself in my poor car, recently pronounced dead car driving. She looks okay from the outside but the inside, well the inside would cost far more to fix than she's worth. Can the same be said of me?