Besides the
arhythmic snoring and teeth-grinding of my roommate, it's completely quiet here at home. I'll miss him when he's gone. I said that once before, when it was a distant thought, a glimmering possibility, far off enough to almost be untrue, but now I know. Acceptance letter arrived a few nights ago. He's going to be an architect.
I'm so proud of him. He worked so hard and he deserves this.
I'm letting it sink in that I'm going to be alone soon. That I will have to share this room someday with a stranger (though I'll likely be the stranger of us two). I'm not sad about it. I've stretched and worn my supply of sadness in this life, like moth-eaten winter coat. Like a pair of ripped burlap shoes that should have been thrown out long ago. I'm not able to be sad anymore.
I carry all my hurt with me. It's been a long time.
I went to a party tonight. Surrounded by people I know and love. It was Rika's Birthday party. I just wandered the room for most of the night, watching them all. I still don't know what to do around people. I like the quiet. The stillness of night time. The hush reaches a deafening pace about 1 AM. It helps me remember.
I've been hurt. I've been hurt a lot, with few moments of real remembrance. I have no interest in why anymore. I don't feel the need to keep asking that question. Not in the quiet, black speckled with black night that I don't have to share with anyone. This time is ours. My God and me.
Is it vanity? Is it narcissism? That I imagine I can feel the Earth picking up speed, swirling around the sun at such a rate that I may one day just slip off it, and be crushed under the gravitational thrust of something so much greater than me? I feel pinned to the ground of this great massive weight of sky, like a bug trapped in a spider's nest.
I am not afraid.
Fear will do me no good any longer. I've lost. I chose loss, and it found me. It sought me out, and tried to remake me. Now I carry the weight of my pain on my back. I carry all of them. The ones that hurt me. The ones that tried to help me. The ones that see me as beyond helping.
People ask me about it all the time. This pain that I keep hidden. They want to know so that they can lift it off my shoulders, perhaps so that I might breathe again.
I gave up on breathing long ago. I wouldn't trade my pain for a world of happiness, if such a thing existed. I met you through it. I can see something in it too. Something deeper than happiness. My pain is a beautiful pain, that I can't put completely into words, or paint on any canvas. None will stretch far enough.
I am grateful. I have been touched by something deeper, darker, and more rich in color than anything I could ever have taken upon myself. I have fallen head over heels for the hurt that found me. Alone is not a punishment. Pain is not a punishment. I will not run from it any longer.
