WAKE UP, LOVE
BOZOMA SAINT JOHN
BEEP.
and wakefulness, I reach out toward my nightstand, where my phone alarm is screaming angrily at me to wake up. It is incessant and disturbing my hard-won peace. I’m trying to put my finger on where I am and what I’m doing here, knowing that it couldn’t have been that long ago when I finally drifted off. In the corner of my mind I’m trying to remember something lost in the sleepiness that has enveloped me, but I can’t grasp it. Notes of lavender swirl around my senses; I inhale deeply, grateful for the familiarity and comfort. Ah. I’m at home. Safe. I stab at the screen with sleepy force, pleading with a searching fingertip for the snooze button.
SILENCE.
obey my command to open, but my ears are on high alert. I’m listening intently for the heartbeat next to me. And I wish mine wouldn’t beat so loudly in my own ears. Shhhhh. I can’t hear anything. My terror starts to accelerate as my searching fingertips inch toward the other side of my California-king bed. It’s empty. Why? What? How? When? My eyes fly open in shock. But, a second later, the answering memories rush in. Pain overcomes the terror, starting at the back of my throat and stifling the sob that wishes to escape. When people say they feel choked up, is this the feeling they mean? I want to cry out but there is a vise-like grip on my insides, shutting down all function. It would be easier to succumb to the pain, to sink into the darkness from which I just woke. But I can’t do that today. Today I have to get up. I have to get up like the other 2,251 days that I’ve woken up after the morning Peter died.
BAM.
I fling the comforter off my body, allowing the cool air of my room to caress my body into alertness. The air is as cool as the other side of the bed, and it’s a visceral reminder that I am alone. Alone. Alone though I don’t wish to be. Alone though my heart aches in these small hours of the day when no one else moves. But I find that the aloneness isn’t as bad when it seems as if no one else in the world is stirring. If I hold my breath, I hear nothing at all, and in that nothingness the world is quiet. I don’t have to hear the beginnings of everyone else’s bustling, coupled lives. But my spirit starts to fight against my rib cage because holding my breath hurts almost more than breathing. I have no peace in my nothingness. So I breathe in my singular breaths, calming my racing heart, which threatens to explode under the pressure of its sadness.
BEEP.
that damn alarm, which is screaming again. But I let it ring for a bit longer, as the sound fills the lonely space and adds life to my too-quiet room. It’s also reminding me that I must stand up. I must move forward. In that way, I welcome the cacophony that invades my peace upon waking every day. The battle is in my heart; I fight between curling inward to ward off the pain that threatens to consume my whole being and the desire to seek out new meaning in this life I’m now living. I’ve always been an optimist. I’m the one who knows everything will be okay even in the face of a dark journey because I search for a faint light in the distance. But the light was turned off at the end of the tunnel on the day the oncologist said Peter’s life would come to an end sooner than we expected. On that day, my optimism failed me. I thrashed against the promise of new dawns and hopeful joy in the adventure of life’s endless days. I careened toward the fear of a span of years in which I’d have to raise our daughter alone. Today, like yesterday and tomorrow, I must make an active choice to get up.
THUD.
as they hit my cool hardwood floor and blood rushes through my sluggish limbs. What will I do today? The question has had the dual purpose of haunting and motivating me ever since Peter and I started to count down the days until his death. We’d get up and set an intention for our action that day. Should we do something playful? Something meaningful? Something practical? Something that I found in my dreams? The practice has been hard to break in the days since December 11, 2013, when we stopped doing it together. If I lose this practice, I will not just have lost his physical presence, I will have lost him altogether. So I ask myself that same question each morning, as if he’s here and we can decide together how we will engage the world today. I search my mind for the answer, knowing that my schedule is already packed to the brim: conference calls, lunch meeting, strategy review, bestie debrief about her new guy, etc. Sometimes I wonder if I stay so busy in order to keep myself from having to decide what to do without him. It’s easier to fill my time with obligations that feel outside of my control so that I don’t have to make a choice. I have given everyone else the power to make my life a blur of movement.
FLICK.
burns my eyes as I rub them to gain focus. I look at the woman looking at me. I’m 2,251 days older than the day my life shifted on its axis. There are new gray hairs at my crown. There are a few more wrinkles in my squint as I scrutinize myself. I turn to the left to look at my body profile. It’s not so bad. I’ve been working on it to erase the doubt that anyone will want to feel my intimate strength again. I rip off the old college T-shirt that I sleep in to get a better look. I flex in the mirror, admiring the new lines of definition. They scream strength. But I feel vulnerable. I don’t know how to fill the void in my heart. I’m longing for comfort and love, but they escape me. There are not enough reps of bicep curls or lunges or sit-ups I can do to force love back into my life. I know it must come willingly and perhaps unexpectedly. But I’m impatient. I want love again NOW. I want it in this moment of doubt as I stare at myself. The fears that threaten to send me crying back under the sheets sit on the tip of my tongue, but I’m afraid to speak them aloud. Will I ever find love again? Will I become so accustomed to my loneliness that I forget what intimacy feels like? Am I too independent for another man to find himself in the unasked question in my gaze? If these questioning fears are spoken, will they become true? We are all powerful enough to control our destiny through the language we use to commune with ourselves. I know that. I also know that I’m scared. I want love but I don’t want to lose it again. Should my intentions today be to find my way to love?
RING!
my phone as it alerts me with the first notification of the day. I open my calendar. It’s full. There’s no time to find love today, but perhaps it will find me. Ahhhhh. There’s that optimism. Maybe it’s not gone. Maybe it’s just hidden, afraid to show itself in the light of the uncertainty of life. Nothing in my life has gone according to my plans, so maybe today isn’t going to be what I think it’s going to be, either. But would I want it to be predictable? I’ve gone to psychics and mediums and horoscopes to tell my future, but I haven’t found my peace there, either. I come away from those experiences yearning for more information, more connection, and more certainty. There are no answers to be found outside of myself. My actions determine my future regardless of what destiny throws my way. I look at the mirror and into my brown eyes, which change from light to dark depending on my mood. I steel myself and command: Bozoma, be open to expanding your heart and stepping into love today.