This one I fear will haunt me the rest of my days. Will bring a lump to my throat each time I wander through a department store or browse a catalog or attend a party. Will place a wedge of heartbreak between me and everyone else. Will plant seeds of bitterness within me. Will find me weeping quietly and alone and embarrassed, when I wish I could just be heard, when I wish I could just stop thinking. When I wish I could get time handed back to me on a silver platter with a kind note saying "here, it's not your fault, you can have it all back and start all over." When I wonder where the love is hiding because this surely can't be it. When I belittle myself for not trying harder to make it happen. Then again, what else could I have done? Nothing. All that remains is for the universe to care. Which it doesn't. Time to take one for the team. Again.
Who knew it would be so hard to let go of something I never had? Except that I did have it in my heart, my dreams, my great plan for my life, in my thoughts nearly every day for so many years. And now it's left, an unfinished puzzle cast aside and tumbling among faith and despair. And conceding is filling me with hate and grief. And it's lonely, all this wandering about looking for impossible right answers while the only answer is the wrong answer: give up. I can't, but I must.
