On the surface...

Breathe in...

My muscles are tired and sore as I ease and then collapse into my desk chair. It was a long night, made restless by the staccato of thunder and visual crescendos of lightening that lit the densly windowed bedroom. Thirst. I climb clumsily from the bed, wrenching my body from his dead-weight arm, and make a long forge in pitch black hallway bathed in the intermittent flashes of the storm. Quenched, sated and achy I roll back into our bed.

Breathe out...

After a five-run lead, the Rangers lost, and this morning you cursed them while I haphazardly stuffed my bagel into my tote. The coffee is creamy, sweet and strong, but not nearly enough douse my mind in awareness. We're running late for lack of sleep and because making two separate lives synchronize is harder than we thought. It reminds me of a conversation I once had with a mother and how she referred to her sons as "this one" and "that one." But we can't go back to this or that; now we're an infinite "we," an unending "our."

Dive deep...

But I'm just tired. Tired of my propensity for worry and the resulting proclivity for inaction. I'm tired of hungering for success, praise and acclaim while knowing that it's just not my time. I'm an adolescent boy that dreams of climax but dreads my peak. I'm a sports car that craves the open road but cringes at the thought of mileage. I'm a middle-aged woman, remembering everything that led to this point, all the memories and love, but I can't come to terms with the wrinkles from my laughter.

Come back to the surface...

Give it time and the hours will pillage.