I'm working on it.

I don't write much anymore. There is no time to do it. No time to be still and center any thoughts about any one subject.  And there is just no one subject rolling around either. Life in this present appears as a jumble of thoughts, needs, wishes, hopes, sorrows, frustrations and demands with no time to adequately address any of them.

Not long ago, I typed out an email to myself about how I really feel.  Therapy for free, if you will.  Like the rest of this random blog where I randomly write random things that mean little to anyone, maybe even little to me, but somehow need to be freed from the inside parts.  And even though I wrote it down, I can't bring myself to actually place it in the light; somehow I feel it needs hiding still, in case someone else, someone wiser or more knowledgeable or happier or better should see it and ink it up with red pen.

This has been the longest year of my life. And so far, the hardest year.  Harder than that seventh year of marriage when we both realized that we'd forever committed to another imperfect person.  Harder than the years when we were working through what marriage meant to our relationships with our parents.  Harder than the year when I could not get hired, even to sell lipstick, and ended up on the couch knitting in a bathrobe.  It has been so hard.

And it continues to be hard.

I'm ok with that.

But what I really hate is the lying.

Because that's what I've become.  A big liar.

People ask how we are.  Some don't really mean it in that sense.  They mean it in the well-mannered conversation way, like 'hi'.  Some don't really mean it at all. They just ask because it's so much a practiced part of Sunday greetings that they can't break the habit.  Some really do mean it, but then, they are in the same place, in a jumble of life's crazy and they don't have time to hear anyway.

So I lie.
I smile and I say we are doing great, counting down the weeks, hanging in there, getting along, a little tired, but still going strong.
And then they smile back and pat me on the back or the shoulder or give me a quick hug and say how glad they are for us and walk on.

I do this over and over and over and over and over.

And that's not the real story.

In the grand sense of things, we *are* totally fine. We are making it. We are pushing on and getting through. It's what we do.  It's what we will do. We will get through all of this.  There is grace, big enough and strong enough to pull us across to the other side.

But it's not the whole story.

What do you say to the persons who demand things of you when you can barely get through the basics? How do you explain to your friends that you just can't make the play date or the coffee date or do the extra demonstration or teach them how to sew - just not right now? How do you explain that you are so exhausted that merely getting ready for the one hour ballet class each week is nearing the impossible? How do you explain that you don't want to deal with any serious conflict right now, that you just want to rest and get through to the end? And WHY, why, can't anyone see this, sense it on their own and just get it? Can nobody see, can nobody even imagine the toll these last months have taken?

So far, it's like nobody sees. Or maybe nobody wants to. Or maybe we are all so caught up in the hard of our own lives that we've no time for the hard in anyone else's. Or maybe I'm whining. Or maybe this is just the way it goes between now and the stepping off of forever.

I don't really have an answer.
At this point, I'm head down, shoulder to the wheel, pushing to get to the finish.
It could be in sight.
But after the events of this last twelve months, I have no faith that it really is in sight.
And I fear that what I think is the end is really only a slight pause in the difficulty.

And what of it?
There is nothing to be done if it is.

So I keep smiling. And keep lying.
And make this secret post the only hint of the truth that I'm feeling.
It feels a little safe.
Especially since I don't write much anymore.