The Silence of the Storm

It is just after 8:15. It has been a season of silence. I came to work half expecting some kind of email to be waiting to greet me in my Eudora Inbox. Only half expecting, because I really doubted anything would be waiting at all. The doubter in me won the pot. Natalie and I had a rough morning at Starbucks. It was our weekly Friday morning breakfast date, but it seemed more like a long overdue dental appointment. Stress was high, you could cut the tension with a knife. She needed to express, to vocalize the struggles and feelings that are plaguing her right now. Caught in the deep malaise of self-doubt, I needed to be a typical male, grasping at the straws of solution. I tried to "fix" what she needed to express. It was Darwin in action, the perfect drama of two people caught in the middle of a fight or flight situation, desperately fighting to express our emotion in ways that would ensure that we would still be breathing at the end of the day. But then, when it was clear that our fight was turning to a flounder, we tucked our tails, jumped in our cars and headed our separate ways to work.

It's just after 8:30. It has been a season of silence. I am sitting at work, clicking "check mail," half expecting to have something new waiting to greet me in my Eudora Inbox. Only half expecting, because I really doubt anything will come at all. The optimist folds; the doubter in me wins again.

Last night we watched Calendar Girls. It was a way to keep our minds off of the inevitable the meeting the was convening and call that would, no that should be coming. I went to bed at 11:30. It had been a long season of silence. I was sitting on our futon, glancing regularly at my cell phone, half expecting to have a new voicemail waiting for me. Only half expecting, because I really doubted a call would come at all. The dealer calls, the doubter in me wins again.

Friday morning, June 11. A week ago I received the confident promise that we would get a call on Monday and another on Thursday. It is Friday and the calls never came. The helplessness, the excruciating pain of waiting is hard to bear. Doubt rages. Confidence falters.