On the Wrong Feet

You call and say you have cancer.

I forget the year. I am stomping down the hallway in your big, heavy shoes. You are sleeping. I want to show you the stack of business cards from all the strangers I ignored at the front door, or read our newest issue of The Justice League, or spin on the dusty porch’s tire swing until I am dizzy. Waiting, always waiting for you to wake up.

You talk about life insurance.

For a moment, all I can think is that I want your shoes — not to fill them; I want to hide them beneath my bed frame where the dogs leave well-loved toys. I want to hide them from the part of my mind resenting the parts of our lives that dissected each other.

“They can remove it,” you say. “I don’t need it anyways.”

It is strange to me that even your cancer is more easily remedied than our ancient grievances that are like creases in the toes of my pre-owned sneakers.

I forget the year.

What season are we in our dysfunction?

I hate you. And I love you.

I am unhinged, sobbing in front of the bathroom sink with snot, and tears, and the dingy faucet’s water all flowing together. And the two halves of us diverge like my left and right shoe: one favored for comfort of rare sentiment, the other left pitted from trudging through thorns of our past.

We talk about debt —

not what we owe each other

but the world.

I forget the year.

I am balancing on concrete beams in the parking lot. You are talking on the phone. Your big, heavy shoes pass over cracks in the sidewalk. I hold out my arms, waiting, always waiting for you to catch me if I fall.

But I catch myself instead.

You call and say you have cancer.

I wonder if your shoes have ever been this confused,

as if one afternoon,

you put them on the wrong feet.

***

Hello, wanderer,

Life can be full of conflicting emotions. It's okay to be confused about how you should or shouldn't feel. Please give yourself patience and grace.

xoxo,

for now,

-your friend, reminiscing