There will be days, she said. Something in her voice, as though spilling the secret of life. In this fellowship of those who suffer you are warmly welcome. Take this comfort, take this warning. There will be days.
Either this freed me or I was already free. Breathe easy: pain will come. Let it pass over you like labour. What you are birthing is yourself, every last atom made new inside you. You will survive this.
For a while I left the door ajar for whatever would come in. But it seems that we're done with one another for a while, my pain and I. We're taking time apart. I move my fingers and my feet, and they do not feel like mine. I walk for miles, pound the treadmill in praise at the miracle of myself. I stand wrapped in my winter coat to watch lights move across the old city walls and gasp along with the children. Was the world always full of things like this?
I have arrived so late. I wish I had learned faster, lived braver. Maybe it takes even longer, for some, carrying their decades strewn with confusion and loss. Thirty years to see myself and like myself, most days.
Either this freed me or I was already free. Breathe easy: pain will come. Let it pass over you like labour. What you are birthing is yourself, every last atom made new inside you. You will survive this.
For a while I left the door ajar for whatever would come in. But it seems that we're done with one another for a while, my pain and I. We're taking time apart. I move my fingers and my feet, and they do not feel like mine. I walk for miles, pound the treadmill in praise at the miracle of myself. I stand wrapped in my winter coat to watch lights move across the old city walls and gasp along with the children. Was the world always full of things like this?
I have arrived so late. I wish I had learned faster, lived braver. Maybe it takes even longer, for some, carrying their decades strewn with confusion and loss. Thirty years to see myself and like myself, most days.
RSS Feed
