Rootbound

by Tarah DeWitt

When I was in nursing school we learned about wound debridement: the act of removing the dead or damaged tissues in order to improve the healing potential of the remaining tissue. I can’t help but find it darkly ironic that, broken down, that word is de-bride-ment—exactly what the process of divorce is: un-becoming the bride.

I hate that I haven’t been able to hold my head high and push through like so many other problems in life—with copious amounts of sarcasm, distractions, overeating and then over-exercising, perhaps even some girls’ nights mixed in.

But I’m not the witty, fun friend they once knew anymore, anyway. I was half of a whole and now I’m just … half. I can’t even recall the last time one of them called or texted, and don’t know what I would say at this point if they did …

Because that’s the singular constant in life, isn’t it? That one minute you are completely obliterated by it, and then in the next moment, it carries you toward something else, regardless of whether or not you’re still emotionally reeling.

I don’t want to be angry anymore. I have moments of it, but I find that it’s a useless emotion in this scenario. I’m just incredibly sad now. Sad beyond tears. The kind that goes bone deep, numbs you and makes you aware of when you need to remember to breathe.

I miss feeling cared for, feeling precious to someone, and the self-loathing that this actualization brings me is a daily dose of acid, burning and sour.

You’re going to shit your pants … emotionally.”

“When you buy a new plant, you often have to cut the roots when it comes out of the pot. That way, when you put it into the ground, the roots will reach outward, and it will thrive. If you left it in that plastic pot, in that compacted shape it’s in, the roots would grow around and around in a tangled mass until it’d choke the life from itself. It would become too rootbound to grow.”

“I wish you could see how you glow. How you brighten a room every time you enter it. I can’t imagine anyone, ever, losing sight of that with you. And I’m glad you’re here, and that you’re not wasting your time with anyone like I did. I hope … I hope you’ll continue to.”

Also, how do I keep you? Is it way too soon to feel like this? I think you’re my soulmate and I never thought that was a real thing before I met you. You’ve turned my thoughts into an endless stream of cheesy romcom lines that are somehow applicable and understandable now. You had me at hello.

“Even if this fails in a less than spectacular fashion, Henry, I want to love you until then. I want to love you until it’s devastating.

“I want to put down roots here: beside you, across a pond from you, somewhere new with you, I don’t care. You’ve made me want to do that, to plant myself somewhere and flourish.”