This Is Me Not Calling

This is me not sending a text message. This is me not calling. This is me not thinking about the one that might get away.


We have so many games to play and not everyone has read the rule books. It would be too banal to talk about how men and women are wired differently. And even a little banal to talk about how we have to do our rewiring within ourselves to keep from sinking into the never-never-land-of-why-isn't-he-calling.

In the moments when I feel really – but I mean REALLY bad – about someone not calling, I go to that place where I didn't care if a particular someone called or not, and how his not calling did not make the gaping hole in my life any larger. And I try to remember how my life was normal despite the pockets of emptiness.

But it doesn't help. Because sometimes we REALLY want someone to call….

Why is it, that when that someone in particular doesn't call, the emptiness is suddenly a chasm, an abyss, a black hole, threatening to envelope us into ourselves, to turn us inside out and rattle the matter of our being into anti-matter which itself will engulf the black hole?

We wake from a fitful sleep and the hole is still gaping, even if no longer filled with molten lava. We make it through another day of work, and there might be a footbridge around the crevices.

He calls. And for those moments on the phone we are taking it slow, when in truth, given half a chance, we would pack our U-Haul and pick out curtains in a pattern that would thoughtfully allow him to maintain his masculinity.

So this is me, sublimating my energy, exercising my creativity, and totally blowing off work that is piling up as I write.

So, as has been done forever, I let the hunter hunt. I bid him good bye until he finds what he is looking for. And I, the gatherer, reap the bounty and set the table. I, like all gatherers, have poured my soul into everything I do – and not do. For even in not doing, I invest so much energy, so much thought, so much concern.

It seems ridiculous. But it is that soul that makes us SO worth coming home to.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------