Out the other side

I don't know if it's the weather breaking, or the sleep, or the much-needed time away from the work but I have crawled out of my depressive grey chrysalis and am fucking renewed. I walk with fucking purpose, I take it all in stride and eat it for strength. I am a fucking warrior queen. I handle the world thrown at me, and I handle it masterfully. I fill my hands with the dirt and I own it.

This, I like to wear.

He's gone, and I feel... nothing. It's so infrequently I feel anything. A brief love affair, a trial. A temporary placement in my life. Sweet enough at the time, but now gone... and there's nothing. No loss, no panic, no regret. If anything I feel strong again, not having to wonder or worry. Not being concerned I don't feel enough.

I wonder what he feels about it, but then, a cloud, it passes, and I don't much care. I think about how many I have left in my wake, sweet honey sugar men, good men, men who tried and who cared and who wanted very much to love me, and I feel... nothing.

More than I did before, I suppose.

Before Dorian, I had no sympathy. I did not understand love at all. I did not understand what they felt.

At least, I tell myself, I let them go. I cut them off. I passed them along before the hurt would be too great.

Some lingering regret, maybe, is all that haunts them now. A vague sense of wonder. A tingle of loss.

I may feel nothing, but I am not cruel.

I would never do to another what he did to me.

But the sun is out, and the things he did to me seem far away. I am relieved. Often after the loss of a lover, I sink down. I swirl into emptiness and missing him.

But the days are warm and bright and I am not missing him. It's not an emptiness, it's a wholeness. Not missing him brings me back to myself.

I am buoyed by the days and some sleep and some adult conversation, and I feel supremely strong and capable. My yard expands into a wilderness and I look at all the things in my life I must learn to tackle, and I am not overwhelmed. I set them into pieces in my mind, sections to approach. I will take them on and I will master them. I will and can become the best version of myself.

I do not want to be who I think I am. I want to be better than who I was.

Such stupid wisdom he's always spouted.

I am responsible for my words. I am responsible for myself.

I am responsible for becoming better, and I will own this world and leave the days around me better than I found them.

That is why I am here. Heartbreak, excess, those are nothing to my mission.

I am an infinitely confusing double-edged sword of intensity (didn't you say?) and I am strong enough to wield it. To wield my own confusing and sharp-edged intensity to build a softer world.