love

April 28, 2019 By HallieZ 1 Comment

i can wait

Feeling trapped, afraid of rejection, I force the words out

“I don’t know what I want”.

He speaks clearly.

“I can wait”.

All the bells go off in my head. I am scared and I wonder if it is real, but I am not sure and I don’t know.

Softly, he cautiously voices the last thing I was expecting to hear.

“I am not asking you for anything you can’t give”.

I don’t know how to do this, really. I don’t know how to accept a man holding space for me.

It is easier for me to just assume that all men only want one thing.

It is easier to sign on for the toxic and not-nuanced expectations of what it means to be a man.

I know how to be demanded of.

I know how to give in to control and coercion.

I know how to submit, how to swear to a man that I am not real and never existed and agree that it is true, what I want doesn’t matter. In fact, what I thought I wanted isn’t something I want at all and is actually quite BAD.

He holds me close. His breath matches mine and I watch the clouds go by.

All is still.

This is new.

I am scared.

Maybe it REALLY is ok with him, if I am real.

Maybe it REALLY is ok if I want and need.

Maybe my answer is worth waiting for.

He is the men who have come into my life since my divorce and given me glimpses of what a man can be. Thank you for being a part of my journey.

January 23, 2019 By HallieZ 1 Comment

1,000 Band-Aids

I need one thousand band-aids today.

Wait.

1,000 isn’t even close to enough,, and I can feel it all around me today.

A band-aid for you Ted, in your ripped pants exposing your body to the elements. I put coffee and some donuts in your hand and I listen to a story, but I know it isn’t enough.

A band-aid for you, angry woman, who screamed at my kids and their dad Saturday at the pro-life march. My daughter’s heart was with you, but how could you know? She’s sobbing in my arms because she knows you’re hurting, for some reason, and she’s only 12, and she doesn’t get to choose where she goes. But she loves you.

A bandaid for you, rich lady. You have everything, it looks like, to most of us, but as I dust another shelf that doesn’t need dusting, my heart pounds in time with yours, and I know it’s never enough, and it doesn’t satisfy in the way that you need.

I don’t just need band-aids.

I need the antibiotic ointment ones.

Scratch that.

I need the ones with the fucking cure for all the world’s problem.

I want a miracle drug on those bad boys.

I don’t just want to put a band-aid on you, I want to wrap you up in gauze, douse you in saline solution, and sing you to sleep. Hold you in my arms. I don’t care if you smell like the street and the garbage and the pain, I want you to somehow know you are beloved.

I need the biggest bottle of lavender oil in the world and a hot tub the size of earth to hold your pain. To soak you in love.

I see you.

I love you.

August 26, 2018 By HallieZ 1 Comment

I WILL DO IT!!!!

When she’s waking up next to me… burrowing into my body, nuzzling and smiling and she thinks that since I was in her dream it wasn’t a dream because here I am next to her…

“OK! I WILL do it, Mama!!!”

She declares into the folds of my tummy.

What? What will you do?

She turns her face up and gives me a glare of impatience at my stupidity.

“I will make the BIGGEST PARTY”

duh, mom

The biggest party? Where will it be?

(I know I’m slow, child, but seconds ago I was in a completely different universe)

“ALL THE WAY TO CHINA!!!”

she dives under the covers again and comes up between my pillows and I can’t breath because I’m almost suffocated from the snot that is trying to kill me.

China!

I’m only slightly surprised.

“no, DISNEYLAND!! The party will be ALL THE WAY TO DISNEYLAND!!!”

Like an eel she’s under my arm and over my leg and the sheets are twisted and good heavens child.

“I need to watch Daniel Tiger now!!!!!”

She yodels

I readily agree, because she is my 4th child and I’m over freaking out about screen time and I need a half hour to recover from waking up with this wildcat.

August 7, 2018 By HallieZ 1 Comment

13 Things I Learned

Today is my 15^th wedding anniversary. Crystal.

Today is also my first wedding anniversary as a divorced woman.

We don’t say much, on these days, those of us with the “failed” marriages, who dwell in “broken” homes.

We are kind of outliers… those of use who were married longer than average, but aren’t any more. We lurk in the shadows… conversations about husbands… futures… sort of trail off when we walk up. It’s weird, to have your identity be linked to another person, so intimately, so entirely, and then be, well, just, you.

I learned a lot in my marriage.

It was one of the most amazing, passionate, heartbreaking, hopeful, growing things I have ever done in my life.

I left my husband.

I filed for divorce 3 months after our 13^th wedding anniversary.

That was the bravest thing I have ever done in my life.

My divorce was finalized a few months before my 15^th anniversary.

Timelines are important to me.

They help me make sense of the years I spent with him. Sometimes, I write them out, as I search for answers, as I try to figure out which pieces fit, look for the signs I missed.

Sometimes, I want to share marriage advice with young grasshoppers, but I feel like I can’t, because my marriage is over.

I don’t actually believe my marriage failed.

I don’t believe I live inside a broken family.

And I think, on the subject of marriage, I have something to offer.

So. Today. I give you…

one for every year I was married

Words don’t matter much. I BELIEVE what my partner is telling me with his actions.
My love is NOT going to heal my partner’s wounds. My love can only be a part of the healing they choose.
No partner will ever know me like I know myself.
No partner gets to define who I am. They get to be a part of my life, my story, and that is a gift to us both.
I never want a partner to be with me because he HAS to, I want him to be with me because HE CHOOSES me.
Adultery can be forgiven
I can say NO. No means NO, even in marriage.
Saying I DO was not blanket consent covering all things until the day I died.
Forgiveness is a process, and its ok to come back to the reason we need forgiveness in the first place.
I am worth fighting for.
My children are worth fighting for.
I am capable of more love than I ever dreamed possible.
I am lucky, blessed, honored, to have had those 13 years.

And a bonus for the year I was separated but still married:

14. Marriage doesn’t define us, we define our marriage.

All the pain, all the love, all the hope, all the joy, all the freedom, all the gifts that came?

I think they were worth it.

July 31, 2018 By HallieZ Leave a Comment

To Say Goodbye

It was supposed to be

You and me

Grey hairs

Wrinkled fingers entwined

Foreign movie on the screen

Sundance festival image flickering

You and me

In this theatre

100 years old

and counting

Instead

Here I am

Your body laid out

Cold

The essence of you is gone

Has been gone

For some time

I don’t know when it was

I realized you weren’t there

I have my suspicion

But

I can’t be certain

They said it would come in waves

This grief

And

They were right

They said I would say goodbye in stages

They were right

I move over your body

I know you aren’t here

But I remember

When you were

Your shoulders

Broad

Tanned

Muscled

Angling down to a waist

Gaunt from fasting

Carharts hanging

I touch

The lines I know so well

Goodbye

Months pass

And here we are

In this room again

Your lips

I don’t remember the last time I kissed them

I remember the first

Goodbye

Another season comes and goes

I watch a movie alone

And like a surge in the ocean

Your hands

Can’t we just bury you and be done?

But no

I touch the lines

Run my fingers over the ragged nails

They knew me

And

they didn’t even scratch the surface

Good riddance

I want to scream

But it turns into a wail

13 years was a drop in the bucket

I scream it to God

She hears

It was supposed to be a hundred

Don’t you fucking care

How long

Does it take

To say goodbye?

What I’m Writing