It’s a Wrap

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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Photo: Monica Silvestre on Pexels.com

 

“It’s a wrap,” she said, and rose, and massaged the small of her back, which after all those hours of sitting felt as if sharp clamps had been tightened through it. Her back was never quite the same since the car accident. Or was it since the Shingles? Or the bad fall? Or the earlier things that were best left unremembered?

It wasn’t only her spine that bowed under the spasm. Her muscles were responding to a lot more than just the time spent in the chair.

He looked up, annoyed and uncomprehending. “Wrap, how?”

“In all the ways that matter,” she responded. It felt like ions since a soft hand on her back would melt the stress away and deepen her breath and make sleep nestle in so close she could smell it.

Decades? Years? Months? Too long.

“Living up to your rap of being cryptic, I see,” he muttered.

It was meant as a jab, but instead made a small peal of laughter form like a pearl inside her belly.

“I guess I am,” she noted, one hand still kneading the tightness in her lumbar area, the other held close against the urge to pat his head and make it better.

She’s moving on. He’ll have to find someone else to do all that for him now.

 

 

 

For Linda Hill’s SoCS prompt: Wrap/Rap

 

 

 

33 thoughts on “It’s a Wrap”

  2. I understand the urge to pat his head, but not in an endearing way.
    I also understand pains in the back after yesterday experience with the MRI scanner knocked the sacro-iliac joint out of alignment. Again. So, well timed, your micro-story.

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  5. Such a real story, Na’ama. I could picture the whole thing and your discussion with John is the same one I would have had with you 😉
    Sometimes we don’t see it. The little things creep in insidiously ’til one day we say. whoa. How did we get here?
    Good for her. Time to move on.

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    • Thanks Dale, and … yes, sometimes it is a gradual thing that we don’t notice till all of a sudden we realize that distances grew insurmountable and that the effort to pretend that they can be breached are more than we can or want to expend.
      It can be sad – in friendships, in relationships of all kinds – but it is also, IMO, part of the human condition and part of the different paths we travel. Some companions go the distance with us, some are only co-commuter for a day or a week or a year or a section of life that is framed by task or place or temporary shared interest.
      The “whoa” happens – and it is a good thing to take notice. Seems like the gal in the story had, and I’m glad for her. 🙂

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      • I actually think it is healthy (even if not always comfortable) for it to happen some of the time. I’ve also seen what happens when one holds on too long, or tells oneself (or others, to convince them or themselves) stories that aren’t the reality but reflect what one WANTS the reality to be or is HOPING the reality to become or return to or that the other person “would change, too” or …. so many other stories that are no longer about a real relationship but the fumes of one. Sometimes letting go and moving on is the right thing and something to learn to do. It is not disloyal (though it can feel that way). It is not selfish (at least not in the negative sense of the word). I’m not particularly good at it … I tend to be one of those who thinks that “if only” I did more, listened better, forgave more, whatever … the other person won’t have to feel unsettled or upset or abandoned … HOWEVER, one of the bonuses of getting older is that I’m getting a whole lot better at letting go, too. I think of it now as part of my “Mandatory Crone Training” 😉
        XO

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      • I hear you, loud and clear. I had a friend that I tried to hard to keep. Like Maya Angelou said: When a person tells you who they are, believe them. My friend told me she was s shitty friend. The thing is, she had moments that were not shitty so I kept it up. Till one day, I said to myself, that’s it. I’m done.
        I still miss our friendship, though.

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      • Yea, those are the hardest, aren’t they? When it is the “sometimes really nice but most of the times really not a good friends…” – it gets very hard to not miss the good parts and/or not work hard to try and ‘elicit’ them.
        It reminds me of what happens when people are in an abusive relationship (and not all abuse needs to be flagrant), and they absorb a lot of the ugly and not leave, because they have the ‘making up’ which feels nice or the ‘good moments’ they yearn for and forever try to find the ‘right formulae’ to create … When in fact, abuse is abuse is abuse.
        Doesn’t mean one won’t miss some aspects of a person, even if as a whole it was not a relationship to keep.
        And … yes, I always loved Maya Angelou’s words (I didn’t know her personally, though she is a person I would’ve loved to know), and this is one of her best quotes, IMO.
        Being “done” doesn’t mean not being sad that this is how it ended.
        I’m nodding at ya.
        Na’ama

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