Chicken Little in Love

For the past few years I have been the romantic equivalent of Chicken Little - flapping around in a panic because my sky is falling.
And now, as I'm climbing out of the rubble...as my rage burns off...I'm discovering the depths of my own sadness.

I didn't know I was capable of this deep, down-in-the-bone sadness.
Before The Man I really didn't have much of a heart to break and now I wonder how these poor saps who fall in love every second day bear it.
How could you possibly want to love someone else, when someone's already ripped your heart out and left you bleeding?
Why on earth would you pick it up, dust if off, and wave it at someone else?
(And yes, I'm still talking about HEARTS, thankyou)

I was reading my favourite book of all time last week, 'Magician' by Raymond E Feist, and I'm always drawn to the dream scene of Thomas and Ashen Shuruga talking and the human boy trying to explain sadness.
It's a strangely poignant scene (I always was a sucker for literary images) and as I read it I realised it completely encapsulated how I feel these days.
A strange, calm, silent depth of sadness that creeps up on you when the rest of the world stills around you.
Something you wouldn't recognise in yourself until the panic dies down and you simply accept.

This must be what it's like when someone you love dies.

Except, of course, if they die, you don't have to ring them up and ask for The Kids' floaties and thongs back so you can take them to the pool.
You don't have to watch them selfishly being not-sad.
Well, it won't be long and I'll only be watching it occasionally from a long, long way away - easier for us, but I dread what it's going to mean for The Kids.

To head off on a tangent - The Man was working on rigs once and heard about Feist doing a book signing in Qld. So he gave one of the Rig Pigs money for when he went back to that town, to get me an autographed hardcover, and then deliver it back to the rig so The Man could bring it back to me two states over.
I start flapping again when I remember moments like that.
It wasn't a mistake - we really were in love once.