She's Gonna Blow.

A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.

Eleanor Roosevelt was right. But I am not Eleanor Roosevelt. Or Jackie O. Or Princess Diana. Or Mother Theresa. Or Oprah Winfrey. Or any of the women I have met and those I haven’t who have had the dignity, strength, grace and stamina to rise above where they came from or what life handed them.

I am me.

And I can’t take it anymore.

“I heard that it was complications from the surgery? Is that right? I don’t know if I ever met him, but I remember that morning and seeing all the cars in front of the house. Why was the Sherriff’s office there? He was a police officer, right? So why would the deputies be there?

There is not one minute in the past four years where I have had a moment of my own. A moment when I haven’t been suffocating under the weight of phone calls and texts and emails and questions and housework and bills and yardwork and sleepless nights and homework and grocery shopping and sluggish mornings. When I haven’t been watching the eyes watching me, looking for signs of weakness. When I haven’t been listening to advice and fixing things big and small and beyond my ability and my patience. When I haven’t been alone in a room filled with people.

“Have you met a special someone yet?”

When I haven’t been fending off questions and curiousity. Because four years have taught me that the only thing more interesting than how, exactly, my husband died is whether I have found someone new with a pulse.

For 72 hours I have juggled hockey and basketball practices and games, grocery shopping two weeks overdue, parent-teacher conferences, disciplinary calls from teachers, piles of laundry, work deadlines, unexpected and expected doctor’s appointments, a sea green pool and the search for Halloween costumes. Messages left unanswered. Cutting emails ignored. Another year gone.

After a day of mayhem that ended in my own personal meltdown and my children’s sobs as they cried themselves to sleep, I sat in the quiet emptiness.

And imagined the lonely away.