Duct Tape and Girlfriends

Prompt: Duct tape can fix anything. Almost anything ...

All of my friends know I am a Southern girl through and through.  I like grits and boiled peanuts.  I enjoy relaxing with friends around a bonfire or a truck with a cooler full of Bud in the bed so much more fun than going to any club.  I even know that roadkill can be a valid food source should something happen to the local Winn Dixie.  And, being a good Southern girl, I have a reverence for duct tape.  Duct tape can fix anything.  Well, almost anything.  I have used duct tape to hold tent poles together.  I have used it to fix leaks in a tent.  I have used it to hem my jeans and to fix a broken pocketbook.  Once a group of friends and I used duct tape and cardboard to build an actual lakeworthy vessel in which we let a young boy set sail.

One thing duct tape cannot fix is a heart aching with love for a man that is not around.

King Charming was recently out of town for four days.  Four little days!  One would think a middle-aged woman like me would have more self-respect than to act like a giddy school-girl.  But recently I have felt exactly like a sixteen year old in the throes of first love.  After twenty-five years love should be like a gentle breeze blowing through the soul, but lately there has been a Category 5 hurricane raging through me.  It feels silly, sure, but then I remember I am not the only one to feel this strength of emotion.  To quote a showtune, "when he goes away, that's a rainy day.  But when he comes back that day is fine.  The sun will shine."  So as silly as it is, I know it's a valid and real emotion.  And I enjoy it.  Usually.

It was a rainy day, actually several of them, when he was recently away.  And it was so hard on me.  I knew before he left it would be difficult but even I was not prepared for the strength of longing I felt for him.  As long as I stayed busy it was just a twinge here and there. But when I was alone, all I could think about was how much I wanted him with me.

It felt like my heart was breaking.  Even thought I knew it was only temporary, I knew I needed to fix it if I was going to get through those days.  And like I said, I knew duct tape would fix anything.  But I could not figure out how to duct tape my heart.

My girlfriends knew how, though.  The whole time King Charming was gone they called and dropped by and generally did not let me have too much time alone.  Sure, all my dreams of spending the entire four days writing flew right out the window.  Looking back on it, I shudder to think of the dark pieces I would have written.  It never takes long for my soul to sink into a valley, but my girlfriends made sure that never happened.  They were the duct tape that held my breaking heart together until King Charming could come home and weld it strong.

Duct tape can fix almost anything.  Almost.  But not everything.  And what duct tape cannot fix, girlfriends can.

Copyright © 2010 Denise Duggan