My hands are shaking a little bit. There might be a smidgen of the hot jelly making the prickly-pear points in my eyeballs. What feels rather like a mildly giant piece of wood is currently growing in the back of my throat. I can feel it shifting whenever I swallow.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the Louisville Free Public Library.
These are all descriptors I am using in an attempt to avoid the blatant truth of what I actually happen to be doing here. I’m avoiding you. I don’t what to look you in the eye, today. I’m afraid I’m not going to do this right. This Last Moment of Last Article.
Yes, I’m crying. Just a touch. Enough to be annoying or somewhat awkward on public transit. This is not sobbing – there is no real and brilliant catastrophe shining down my face. I would own that. Your cheeks all salty; you make a lighthouse out of your sorrow when you sob, when you surrender to whatever turmoil has been percolating for just too long inside and needs to make the burnt and bitter rain out of your face for a minute.
It’s a thing. Like giving birth. This also doesn’t have anything to do with the Louisville Free Public Library or its Main branch or the New Year’s Eve party they will be hosting on December 31st.
Other people are more willing to let you fall apart this way – with The Sob. Let you make a puddle of liquefied bones on the floor. A puddle of Self. It’s indecent; it’s like having your intestines noodling on the floor. Like you’ve been shot. But strangers are suddenly not strangers, usually, in the same way when they see a literal or emotional stomach erupt before their eyes. They have arms that are open, here.
Did I mention I am not doing this? The Sob? I’m not sobbing. I’m very good at it, though. Trust me. I can bleat out a veritable aria of heartache when the lightning-mood of Pain strikes.
The New Year’s Eve Party at the Louisville Free Public Library’s Main branch this Monday, December 31st, is totally free, by the way. And it starts at 2pm, and promises to be a great way to engage families in some end-of-year celebration before that glitzy ball crashes in New York. There will be craft time. Craft time will involve glitter. Glitter is just wonderful.
This might be why I’m just making a small amount of sad fizz instead of the flood of anguish right now, this thing about me being incredibly skilled at the The Sob. I’ve done a lot of The Sob this year (this year is, by the way, almost over). There was a lot of Life that happened up in here, and I’ll be honest – I’m not ready. I don’t want to let go. So this little creep of spittle in my eyes is showing the scared-child fear for me. The monster under the bed shaped like 2013.
2012 was made of arrowheads and glass and they made a lot of splinters in my various parts. But I’m attached now. Involved now. I’ve got Stockholm Syndrome. And I’m not ready yet. This might be part of the “I’m avoiding you” thing I mentioned earlier. I want to be poignant today. That was kind of the goal I decided on when I woke up. Uh oh.
