Return to Me

I am in a nice, relaxed mood and I am feeling quite happy, sitting in my living room, enjoying some downtime and daydreaming about sleeping. As James Brown so melodically screamed, “I feel good.”

My life, over the past few weeks, has...it has...illuminated. I don’t know how else to explain the difference in lighting. My world looks different, again, just like it looked different after Chris’ death.

After his death, my perception of the world was one that painted a picture of a model city, a model world. Grey, ominous structures towered over me, and rows and rows of contiguous constructions kept me trapped in the middle on a course I didn’t want to take. I could feel myself from the inside out, but not from the outside. My skin felt numb and inpetetrable. My emotions were first frozen and then broken. My brain sent signals to my body to feel, but the signals never reached my senses.

Today, about a month after ending my 2.5-year grief-therapy with Clay, I am surprised that I have cried less than a handful of times, since. Mostly, I’m happy. The world looks beautiful to me, which is, in part, due to the fact that my world begins in Cambridge each day. I am partial to the city. My skin absorbs the warmth of the sun, now, and I feel more healed now than I have ever before. I want to be out because I love socializing. I want to be in because I feel reflective and protective of my fledgling spirit. I no longer want to be in because I am hiding and I no longer want to be out because I am running, running, running from my reality. My reality is changed.

Saturday, I ran 4.5 miles, in the freezing rain, with a headcold and when I returned home, every symptom was gone. Not surprisingly, on Sunday every symptom had returned. I ran another 4.5 miles, this time in the freezing sun, alongside the Chalres River, and when I returned home, I felt tired and completely fulfilled. Monday, again not surprisingly I was too sick to go to work, and Tuesday I walked 3 miles at lunchtime and then after work, I set off on foot from the Longfellow Bridge almost to Fresh Pond, a 5.5 mile stretch. Almost, because one of my friends scooped me up just outside Longfellow’s mansion on Brattle Street, since my hands were in the grips of the sundown freeze. I received and accepted an i nvitation to a ride for the last half-mile of my journey. Today, I had planned to head over to the boxing gym after my manicure, but alas, my knee flipped me the byrd and refused to carry me one step further than my apartment. Touche.

Perhaps the changing season is playing a role in my most recent emergence from the hole. I know what I hope, but my hope is still fragile, so I’m not asking any questions or making any decisions. Instead, I am enjoying every moment of goodness, serenity and peace that floats my way. I deserve this most recent respite, a return to the me I was before I ever met Chris, a resurrected me who I thought was dead forever.