Toe Dipping

“Are you alive?”

“Are you talking to someone else?

“I’ve been checking your blog but…”

“Did you give up twitter?”

“I haven’t heard back from you and I’m getting worried…”

I’m alive. Radio silent.

But fine.

I didn’t die. Or make new friends to whom I have been busy baring my soul. I haven’t boycotted social media. Nor have been trying to be rude or flakey.

Just quiet.

It was really hard to leave austin. Not that I am ever excited to drive away, but usually I can acknowledge that it is just a deferment. I’ll be back. See you soon. But this time…saying goodbye was excruciating. To our being a family of six. To J. To memories that live there. To new dreams we are dreaming. To the community we are building.

This time…deferring all of that? Too much. Too much to not let it contaminate my last few hours there. Too much to hold back the tears as I drove out-of-town. Too much to not carry into my week. Too much to keep from heading into a bit of a tailspin.

Last week I was talking to a new friend about the marketing plan for my book. She congratulated me on having built a circle in a city I don’t even live in yet. Networking professionally. Rooting personally. And I’m so thankful for that. But tired of working at it…and not knowing if it really will work out like it seems.

And here…in my suspended life by the sea…everything is different. The people who I talked to every day just a few months ago, completely renegotiated. Except not. We are waiting to see how life will settle, relationships redefined.  I’m hoping that all the work and emotional investment put into those people will mean enough. Hopeful. Maybe? Yes. Most of the time. But I’d like to just know already.

And so in this round of relationship limbo, I spent my week in the most reasonable manner possible. Silent. Withdrawn. Hidden. Preemptively mourning things that hopefully don’t need to be mourned.

And working. Buried deep in the process of making Sadie (the heroine of my book) as real to you as she is to me. Head down…progress pounded out. Determined to control professionally what I can’t personally.

And am I over that for now? Acknowledged and ready to re-engage? I don’t know yet. Whether my response is reasonable or not, the depth of my ache is proportionate to what is at risk, to what is not a given. And like everything else…there is nothing to do but wait and see.

And dip my toes back in the water one inch at a time.

So I blogged.