All too well

I wonder how she's doing. She's divorced like me. I'm sure we have shared some of the same grieving processes. But she is not like me in many ways. Her heart beats a purer rhythm. Her mind is sharper and more focused on things that matter. My heart keeps scribbling illegibly, right off the page, seemingly at odds with reason. 

Yes, this is another Taylor Swift song. I keep going back to her discography because it's accessible and meaningful to me right now. All Too Well is off her Red album which was released in 2012. The line that sticks out to me is "Cause there we are again, when I loved you so, back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known." And then my heart breaks for her. I have to extrapolate because I don't know exactly what her grieving has been like, but I feel I know her well enough to say that line is pertinent. And I'm sure she remembers all the memories she's made with her ex-husband and children "all too well." 

So, while I'm fingering my memories and painstakingly sorting them, I know her sentimental spirit has most likely been shattered by the same process. She made far more memories with her family than I ever did. My son was two years old when I separated from my ex-wife. Hers were much older. And they had summers free to make an endless amount of memories. 

According to Wikipedia, this song was originally 10-15 minutes long. It's a long song by radio standards in its final form. The reason I mention this is because it is the same with the sorting process of memories; we often don't know which are important. Which do we keep? Which do we discard? Where do I put that one? The seemingly unimportant ones at the time become larger than we ever imagined years later. The cutting-down process is laborious, and we often need help paring down the memories to the important stuff. We need help editing our song, just as Swift did. 

I know how those memories suck you down, like quicksand or the proverbial weight of the world. You try to rise up and pass through it, but it holds you down and makes you beholden to it. The line, "Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it. I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it," explains what that is like. Until you sort through the memories and assign meaning to them, you will move no further. You may want to move on, but you are not able until the process is underway. Denial of the process will only delay healing, a truth of which I am now aware. 

It is none of my business, and I'm sure it's better I don't know, but I just wonder what she's doing with her catalog of memories. She surrounded herself with the things she loves, only to see those things change in a fundamental way. I bleed for her. I can't help it. I want to hold her in silence as she ponders these things. I want to make new memories with her while she sorts through old ones. I want to love her with the fire that's in my chest. But I will not. I will sit here and wistfully try to capture her in my mind instead. 

I know her well enough to know how she gave herself to him. How it was perfect and complete, and I also know how he scornfully treated that perfect gift. She chose him over me all those years ago, and she made the right decision, of course, but she couldn't control the monster in his mind, the thing that wanted it all. It wasn't her fault, I know, but maybe she doesn't know. Maybe she blamed herself for not being enough. At the heart of all those memories, she will feel her love for him rise up like a storm. At that moment, I'll be glad I'm not there to see her through the sorting of memories. Some things have to be done in the silence of solitude. I know this all too well.