I’m exploring a new emotion.
Well, maybe emotion is the wrong word.
It’s more like the absence of emotion, the absence of something akin to a feeling.
I had so much of my parents in me.
I was neither a Mama’s girl nor a Daddy’s princess. I was never dependent upon either for money, career tips, or relationship advice.
I just thought about them all the time.
I spoke with them often.
They were with me everywhere I might be.
In my eyes. In my head. In my plans. In my travels.
When my Father journeyed out into the Universe, I put all of him in my Mum.
So when my Mum fell asleep 17 days ago, it was so severe.
And the silence of that departure is echoing through my canyon.
I can’t explain the way I feel. Or don’t feel.
Eliot’s scene from E.T. comes to mind. ET must be dead because Eliot can’t feel anything.
Sure I cry. It waves over me and I let it.
But in between, it’s just me now.
It’s not me, Dad, Mum, Fred, Joe, Irish Twin and Drew.
Not the 7 of us. Not the 6 of us. Not the 5 of us.
It’s like the band’s broken up.
The Musketeers are no more.
I’ve lived alone in my life. I’ve been lonely in my life.
But I’ve never been in a world where the sum of me is only me.
And it feels weird.