I’m still waiting for a holiday to roll around that doesn’t make my heart ache.
I thought it might be this one but I woke up this morning to that old familiar ache, the one that makes me want to pull the covered over my head and only emerge when the holiday is over, the kind of ache that feels like searching, yearning, for what was and will never be again.
I miss the shared language of my Beloveds and the way they anchored me to this world, shaping who I am.
The old me I used to know is long gone, and every time it feels like I might be “becoming,” maybe even “healing,” grief cracks open the sky and the shattered pieces of my soul run in every direction, stampeding wild horses.
Is it strange that I feel the most like me when I’m sitting on the stoop of a centuries-old-house in a quaint little town on a river halfway across the world? Its the kind of town that belongs in fairy tales, and the kind of house that held the fire of creation, music and moonlight, the kind of place that gently holds the yearning and makes it alright.
I wrap myself in my red raincoat lined in leopard print, and pretend there’s such a thing as protection against the rain.
Even so, even with the storms and the ache, I would not trade the love for a single second of peace. This love was and is the kind of love that softens the edges of the world and makes you believe in magic.
Did you know there’s a flower called Queen of the Night? For 364 days of the year this member of the cactus resembles a dead bush. But for one night in the middle of summer it opens with trumpet-shaped, creamy-white flowers.
Things are always blooming and dying and blooming again.
I once had a pot of dirt that sat in the dark storage room for 5 years until one day I noticed a green stem emerging and another day a purple orchid spread its petals, sprouting beauty right out of the cold hard dirt.
If the Queen of the Night and my purple orchid can do it, surely I can too.
I don’t like thinking of the loss, but I do like thinking of the love and wild horses and blooming flowers and someone making music.
In the meantime, I’m choosing to embrace the ache and focus on swimming in the love that remains.
