Samantha Sans Dosage: What Are We Waiting For

What You Waiting For?

Feeling a bit like a five year old, dusty sneaker poking at a pile of unrumpled reddish clay soil, front teeth dug into the flakey cracked bits of used flesh on my bottom lip, aging green eyes searching each one of yours, the luscious dark browns, the pale blue, the ones that look like pleated bits of orange and green tissue paper. The dark black, penetrating cobalt, golden honey and chartreuse. All the colors of the eyes that fall upon my words, upon my open soul and keep coming back to drink from me. I can’t and won’t, wouldn’t assume you have been waiting but, I’m sorry if you even once felt the ache seeking my stories, silliness, sarcasm, sensuality, my voice. I’ve been away….

Been in the place I always am, as far as physically. My home has not been Wizard of Oz’d, still nestled here in the somewhat protected city I’ve called my, well my house, it has never been my home. San Diego and Long Beach are my home, but this apartment where we raised our son, have stained, laughed, cried, grew, shrank, battled, quit and tried again, the space I’ve made a fool of myself by mistake and on purpose, this hasn’t moved. My rickety dining room table and its tired legs that sweetly shudder but stand strong when I plunk my embarrassingly overflowing platters upon it, it is still supporting my hefty forearms and sweaty drinks. My adorable neighbor’s light across the way just now, a welcome and open sign, for a couple more hours knowing someone is there just across the way. Someone to watch over me. My Spotify being that annoying new thing I have to learn. Eventually letting me pretend that I just don’t know how to work the damn thing and that is why I keep listening to the same damn five songs over, and over again. It’s not that I’m freaking obsessed with Olivia Dean and Hozier, it is the fucking contraption that doesn’t get it…not me. Damn things don’t read my fingertip’s mind! Yeah, like that. The smells around here are a little different, my stove a little less slaving, my bed far more rumpled from the tossing and turning. The unconscious foot sweep and entire body wiggle of the lonely left behind bookend. Only so far you can go before you fall off the shelf right?

Before anyone worries, my husband and I are still very much married. I’ve not left or been left, sort of but, my home, my house, it feels more hollow and needy than it ever has. I’m cooking less, enjoying it a bit less and have been finding far less inspiration, both here and crawling my woefully tired clunky frame into bed at night. In the entirety of my 55 years, I have felt completely safe in two, hear that, two spaces, so grateful am I to have this space, my “house” here with my husband, left. The place where we raised our child, the meals, those are all here as if every inch were covered in the warmest, soothing hug of a wallpaper. The other space, well sadly it was basically surgically removed, not an ounce of anesthesia in sight, and no bandage absorbent enough to sop up what I still feel leaking.

I crave passion like an adrenaline junkie craves dropping from the tip of a wave or hovering their toes over the side of a plane. I nurse from that kind of swelling like an infant feeds from a firm and willing nipple. Getting older, and slower, curbs some of that but the fire that churns about inside me, the flames that have flicked at my insides since I was old and wild enough to listen, it still smolders and cracks beneath my skin. Still kicks at my ribcage and raises my eyebrow. It slithers about inside me and sends those tired legs searching for a place to tie up, to stop for the night. Feels like a warm palm in the small of my back, pushing me to bend in ways that make them watch. Make them crave too. It’s all here, just beneath my aching to be stroked skin, but...

I need that firm willing in my mouth too…

I need a reason to plunge

Leap

Tear at my clothes

My flesh

Bare myself….

Feel myself searching more than ever before. The Taylor Swiftication of music. The Parkersation and AntiParkersation of wine. Boring and lonely food I cook for just me. The points wars. The who matters and who doesn’t ego fucking stroke of interweb wine blog self-glorification, and retail hierarchy a soulless and backlit empty footless sweep of a very empty bed. Not sure I ever fit in the whole fancy wine world and as it bleeds out I can say once again, I’m okay with that. I do still so badly ache to learn, read, be fed and nursed…have that tug of my lips on the firm and willing inspire me to spread myself open to those in need of feeding too.

So now what?

Settle into a new life with a few less daily voices as I do my best impression of a baby making out the new shapes and faces. I’ve let the weight of acceptance tie my tongue, hold me back and down for long enough. I’ve never been able to line dance or do the electric slide. My body doesn’t bend that way….their way, I stumble and with my “Zinfandel Face” watch the counted out steps drag, uninspired across the dance floor just like the choreographed, “thoughts” spin in front of my screen like they are on some crazy Sisyphus spool. Time to hit the “fuck it” button and open myself again. I miss the feeling. The wriggling out of those socially acceptable britches didn’t come without a bit of a hiccup. My severely vexed and fatigued mind took that quite literally.

It’s a small thing in the world of serious issues. My sleep has always been a spiteful and craveable mistress but this was the first time I’ve ever woken from a sound sleep, heart racing in my throat, pillowcase ripped in half between my fingers, in tears only to fall back to sleep and have it happen all over again. A reoccurring nightmare (any of you had those) that brought with it a hot shower and flesh scrubbing kind of creepy that kept me up for almost a full week. The kind of darkness that makes you begin to question your own sanity, like how could your own head conspire to terrorize you like that? How could I have been so grossly naive as to think that I made any kind of difference anyway? I started to tell a friend about what went on in these horrific night films and before I could get halfway through he stood up, wrapped his arms around me, face curled into a twist that let me know I wasn’t being a pussy, his nervous voice telling me, “I love you Samantha” think that might have been the thing that flipped my switch. Love…

I need it

I need to give it

I need to inspire it

I am willing to share it

Show it

Drink from it and spill it into others