4-13

Bird are popping about between the earth and the trees and the sky, uncertain, just yet, if this spring has come to stay.

Somehow I have found myself an unexpected comfort among the days and the nights that have swarmed up against me lately.

I have made peace. It was not, perhaps, the way I might have envisioned it, but I can't deny the comfort of some little peace.

I am not quite happy for him, but I am at the brink. It would have been a waste of so much suffering, for this to fall to nothing. So many lies and so many tears, what for?

In a sense, it has been worth it. Not for me, by any means. My god. But a small portion of my heart is happy for him. On the brink of happy. And that feels good. It feels like the final stages of mourning.

I can't help but want to get a final jab in, but, hey, that's who I am. I never do go easily, do I? I still have untended hurts.

I remember seeing the first man I loved - or thought I loved, at the time - and his wedding photos, the girl he had chosen over me -- during me. It seemed worthwhile. I am never happy to be overlapped, but to be broken for a reason... that, somehow, is okay. I cried a little for him, and they were happy tears. Strange though. For him I am sure I have been long forgotten.

This week, this month, this year, has been such a spiraling upward and downward torment of optimism and hope, success and failure, pain and loneliness.

But it is evening out. The end is in sight. Early in the year, perhaps. Or perhaps it is just a lull. Like the birds, I am not quite ready to commit to this new opportunity. Perhaps it is a false peace.

I think, honestly, perhaps I have just needed socializing. People to talk to, to vent and confess. I feel much less mad these days. I am not a creature who thrives on keeping things inside.

I wish it had gone another way, a softer way. A forgiving way. A way that may have made smooth cobblestone steps toward understanding, but still, it feels right. I can listen to music again. I have been taking myself back this year, and a brief uncertain reaching out has shown me that I will be okay without him. I am sad, that to him I meant so little and to me he was everything, but, as I trudge day to day on this painful hard life, I acknowledge that it is so for many people.

To me, love was special and treasured.

But it is not so for many people.