Atypical Saturday

A desperate and inescapable loneliness has overcome me this morning. Last night I woke up so many times that it’s though I haven’t slept. With everyone gone for fishing tournaments or three-day drunken frolics on the seashore or living new lives with new babies, here I am at home listening to a dishwasher that a young person with the energy of five loaded at 8 AM before getting in a car with her dog to head to Galveston with a whoosh of a goodbye. For once, reading seems like a thief, as I immerse myself in fiction while the real world lives and breathes around me, without me, and now I without it save two cats, the sound of a dripping faucet, and the life of a dishwasher that is remnant of the actions of a person I wish was still here. Not even the veil of sleep can relieve my ache, even if I could bring my mind to give in to it.