...weathered...

I feel, lately...or rather...in this last year of May to May, as though I'm very barely balancing on the edge of a precipice.  I'm utterly off-balance.   Wholly subject to the slightest tremor or breeze.

Or perhaps...to draw a clearer picture...as though I'm braced at the epicenter of a multitude of storms.  

Yes. That.

Some...completely manageable...if they were solo.  A sprinkling.  An annoying drip-drop-drip hitting the back of your neck and sending a shiver through your spine, or landing square in the middle of your white t-shirt on the day you risked the colored bra.

Some...terrible but not devastating.  Damaging, but not wholly unexpected.  The sort you brace for, locking your knees  and the doors and the shutters, and piling up sandbags.  The storms you absolutely know will break off bits and pieces of the trimming, but will get diluted before they can damage the frame.

And others.

The disasters.

The blizzards and the floods and the hurricanes.

The ones that leave rubble in their wake.

The storms that tear through every inch and every corner and destroy everything they touch.

The storms that leave the landscape permanently altered.

The storms that continue to damage long after they've passed through...with mildew and landslides and toxic waste.

And there am I.

At the crossroads or the center or the eye.

Everything whirling about.
Trying to keep my footing and my wits.

Trying to peer out through the clouds and see what's coming

Trying to apply some sort of preemptive safety strategy to things I can't even see coming or understand the long-term significance of.  

Trying...

...to hold on to myself while chunks keep getting yanked off and ripped open.

Trying...

...to keep the storm from ever reaching him by using my own self as a shield.

I have spent years under the umbrella.  Patching the leaks.  Replacing the spines.  Damp about the edges but otherwise safe from any downpour.  I have kept him at the very center of it...surrounded on all sides by the barrier and by myself...making certain that any unexpected debris will exhaust its effect on the way through me.

Time and distance and silence created a shelter here, tucked away from the obvious reach of the storm. We could, and did, exist removed from it all...knowing the storm still raged and calmed and raged again...but never so close that we had to worry.  Knowing that the inevitable damage continued to accrue, but detached from any real-life implications...far enough away that it didn't show up on the radar unless we went looking for it. 

Don't get me wrong.

I knew it wasn't over.

I knew that we were never completely free and clear.

But I welcomed distraction and relaxed into this new life of ours as best I could.  Shoring up the damaged bits and gradually replacing them altogether.  And I remained, in the quiet moments and dark of night, alert.

Never doubting that the storm continued.

Finding new places...new faces...

...to damage.

But I had this umbrella to cover us.

I had taken us all the way to the other side where, even if we squinted in the right direction from time to time, we still couldn't really make out any clear view of the old landscape or the threat that had sent us running.

Here, on the other side, under the umbrella, we were "mostly safe".  Damaged, perhaps.  Different, certainly.  Permanently thrown off our original course.

"Mostly safe". 

 So long as I didn't toss in any pebbles or splash about our boundary, there were no obvious ripples to disrupt the placid surface near us.  

And, now...here and now...

Ego, on my part: To think that I could permanently hold back the storm with just this umbrella.

Hubris: The line-drawing and the fleeing and the rebuilding.

Utter foolishness.

I know that now, here, at the center.

Here.  Where all the storms meet and whirl about...where the ice and rain go sideways and shred holes through everything I thought so solid.  

Here.  Where the cold finds its way through all the cracks left behind from the storm's first devastating pass.

Here.

And now.

All these years later.

I've tossed aside the umbrella.  Tugged him in close behind me and screamed into the winds as though I'm King Lear himself.

"Try me.  I'm ready.  I'm stronger.

I knew you'd come for me.  And I've been preparing. 

You won't win.

You can't get to him.

You can't hurt him.

I won't let you."

And the winds answered back.  Laughing at my bravado.  Whipping through anyway.  The storm tossed its debris right into my face.  All those places and faces it had continued to batter.

It came bursting through the smallest little fissure and swirled up about me, dragging in other storm-clouds I thought long depleted.  

And here I am.  Standing, but barely.  Trembling.

At the center of so much potential damage and desperately trying to keep us both safe.

Weak.  By the damage I sustained the first time.

Strengthened.  By the scar-tissue.

Praying. That the hurt doesn't spill over too much onto him...into him...

Trying to fortify the barrier to him by dismantling the one to me.

And...

More than that...

More than just protecting him from the storm...

Also...

Trying to mitigate the inevitable damage to those it replaced us with...

~Leanna