Dancing

Ours is an awkward one.  A shuffle, a two-step, a slide.  We hold hands, let go, intertwine, step back.  It's the most unrhythmic rhythm I have ever moved to.

There are things, if I had the foolish youth I once had, I would harp on, or make an issue.  There are things that have hurt me in this.  But what I find is, we are both feeling our way.  Though we know each other, we are standing aside to watch the other move.

It's a silent ritual.  This concern.  This giving.  It makes me peaceful inside to feel that care the way I do despite the other bullshit I worry about.

Daily, I feel like we are friends.  Just friends.  There's a level of dependence I can entrust to him, and he can in turn get back from me.  And to me, that's odd.  This feels like a two way street.  And I think that unnerves me.

I watch the care for my kids interspersed with the care of his own.  I watch the way he gives of his time and himself.  The way he demands the kids to give me the time to myself I need.  His way of disciplining them, talking to them. 

Our lives are intertwining, to my impatient self, in a process that is dragging along.  But when I think of other things, I try to put my self in his outlook and calm down.  He's bruised.  Badly.  Broken and angry.  I can be those things, but I don't have the energy and I wait to see when he will realize he's wasting his on it all.