Nessun Dorma
Home. The plane is cradling me the way a slingshot cradles a stone before it launches it through the air. I don’t care that I am moving hundreds of miles an hour more than 5 miles above the ground. I feel cradled and comfortable and the world is a million miles away from me.
I am exhausted and want to sleep but don’t have time and there is a screaming urgent child not far from where I am. Nessun Dorma: none shall sleep; the words are drifting lazily in one ear and out the other. The melody and memories nearly draw tears like blood.
The earliest hours of morning on November 4th, Election Day, in my car she tells me what it was like. She shares her stories not understanding how much I cherish the stories given to me. It’s genetic, a trait my grandfather gave me: the world is so much bigger than me and what I have seen so let me share your eyes and ears and be where you have been. I revel in the words and expressions on her face. She lends every bit of her being to conveying her point. It is extraordinary.
She asks, when was I the most tired? And I am forced to pause and think. There were dozens of times I would have loved to sleep but didn’t want to leave because I knew it would end, even in that moment she asked me I knew this long night was the last we would have. I chose the night we decided to register voters for a full two days without stopping, through the night.
I was wrong. I realized later as I was returning her to the office that I was wrong. The time I was the most exhausted was the night I felt the most included and excluded of all. Driving home from Albuquerque where I had managed to clear the volunteer prospect cue of the final 1,800 volunteers that needed processing while the staff were being trained behind closed doors. They had no control over it but I was reminded of my place, that I was not and never would be a full part of it but I could still contribute in a different way. I was part of something just outside of where I wanted to be. I was proud and exhausted.
I remember driving down I-25 in the pitch dark. New moon makes for a lot of stars. The quiet and the stars and the exhausting, conflicting emotions all enveloped me and my mind left the road. I remember seeing the stripes pass by but my mind was elsewhere. On the side of I-25, nowhere in particular, in the middle of that cold and black night, I could feel her fingers intertwining with mine as we stared up at the stars. I remember feeling peaceful because we had won. As we stared into the vast expanse of stars it seemed as though it would swallow us whole like a cocoon and cradle us. Instead of her fingers I felt the vibration of the steering wheel against my palms as the car drifted onto the shoulder.
I was falling asleep at the wheel. I had to stay awake and I was so close to home and desperate for my bed so I could find that place again where she and I were alone and content and my mind was quiet. Even when I reached my bed I didn’t return to that place, return to that dream.
That was the time I was the most exhausted.
Every time I fall asleep and dream about it all again or moments or people and wake up to find it’s over and they are gone back to their lives and I am still here and the parts of my life that they were are gone. Like holes in a picture I feel like pieces of my life are missing and trying to find them again is exhausting. Every day is exhausting.
The pieces that she took with her I will never get back. Not those pieces. I will find new ones but right now I hunger for the familiarity of the world I knew and lived for 4 months.
I don’t know how to let go and I don’t know who to ask for help. She was so much of my days and nights and now they feel empty. I can’t ask her how to fill them because she doesn’t know or understand how profoundly her presence in my world has changed things and how poorly I adapt to change.
I am terrified of letting go of my last happy memories. I am terrified that I will never find happiness like that again.
I am exhausted and want to sleep but don’t have time and there is a screaming urgent child not far from where I am. Nessun Dorma: none shall sleep; the words are drifting lazily in one ear and out the other. The melody and memories nearly draw tears like blood.
The earliest hours of morning on November 4th, Election Day, in my car she tells me what it was like. She shares her stories not understanding how much I cherish the stories given to me. It’s genetic, a trait my grandfather gave me: the world is so much bigger than me and what I have seen so let me share your eyes and ears and be where you have been. I revel in the words and expressions on her face. She lends every bit of her being to conveying her point. It is extraordinary.
She asks, when was I the most tired? And I am forced to pause and think. There were dozens of times I would have loved to sleep but didn’t want to leave because I knew it would end, even in that moment she asked me I knew this long night was the last we would have. I chose the night we decided to register voters for a full two days without stopping, through the night.
I was wrong. I realized later as I was returning her to the office that I was wrong. The time I was the most exhausted was the night I felt the most included and excluded of all. Driving home from Albuquerque where I had managed to clear the volunteer prospect cue of the final 1,800 volunteers that needed processing while the staff were being trained behind closed doors. They had no control over it but I was reminded of my place, that I was not and never would be a full part of it but I could still contribute in a different way. I was part of something just outside of where I wanted to be. I was proud and exhausted.
I remember driving down I-25 in the pitch dark. New moon makes for a lot of stars. The quiet and the stars and the exhausting, conflicting emotions all enveloped me and my mind left the road. I remember seeing the stripes pass by but my mind was elsewhere. On the side of I-25, nowhere in particular, in the middle of that cold and black night, I could feel her fingers intertwining with mine as we stared up at the stars. I remember feeling peaceful because we had won. As we stared into the vast expanse of stars it seemed as though it would swallow us whole like a cocoon and cradle us. Instead of her fingers I felt the vibration of the steering wheel against my palms as the car drifted onto the shoulder.
I was falling asleep at the wheel. I had to stay awake and I was so close to home and desperate for my bed so I could find that place again where she and I were alone and content and my mind was quiet. Even when I reached my bed I didn’t return to that place, return to that dream.
That was the time I was the most exhausted.
Every time I fall asleep and dream about it all again or moments or people and wake up to find it’s over and they are gone back to their lives and I am still here and the parts of my life that they were are gone. Like holes in a picture I feel like pieces of my life are missing and trying to find them again is exhausting. Every day is exhausting.
The pieces that she took with her I will never get back. Not those pieces. I will find new ones but right now I hunger for the familiarity of the world I knew and lived for 4 months.
I don’t know how to let go and I don’t know who to ask for help. She was so much of my days and nights and now they feel empty. I can’t ask her how to fill them because she doesn’t know or understand how profoundly her presence in my world has changed things and how poorly I adapt to change.
I am terrified of letting go of my last happy memories. I am terrified that I will never find happiness like that again.