Words

April 6, 2016

Do you slowly tug at the bandaid, peeling back a bit at a time, or just rip it off?  Thirty-six journals have sat in boxes at the back of my closet haunting me for the past 30 years. I've held onto the endless scrawlings of words - the grief, the drama, the anger long past their due date.  It's high time to let them go.  I sat for two hours today, leafing through the pages and remembering the dark years when the flow of ink on the page was lifeline to my drowning. The agony of that time has gradually tempered, but today, seeing my familiar handwriting and hearing my thoughts brings me back into the fire.  I look at the cover of each book and am transported to the years when Emma's death was so fresh and life was hopeless. I replay the loop of my answering the door to two policemen.  "There's been an accident". I hate words. I hate looking at the calendar in June.

Come out of the closet... and into the fire.