the things I feel

in the course of a day, hour, or sometimes minute.

I feel at peace. I feel confident in y/our decisions, and assured that my so-often-spouted cliche wisdom of "everything happens for a reason" is true. I feel that I will grow into a better place- though not without work. Not without much, much work.

This is all so easily scratched away- a thin silver coat that peels off in delicate sheets if disturbed or nudged just so. Beneath lies a smarting layer of pink anger. Like skin assaulted, glowing red and hot. This layer is sometimes rational and justified, empowered and cathartic. But far more often it is the anger of an animal- leg caught in trap. The rage of a small creature overwrought with fear and blinding pain. This rage gnashes it's teeth blindly at anyone encountered, even those coming to assist.

Not far beyond this, enmeshed and interwoven, lies the fear. Fear of the new, fear that I am now too old, too fat, too unlovable. Fear that I am somehow damaged beyond repair, and that I have been afforded a glimpse of my future: a groundhog-day existence of falling, loving, trying, pushing, ignoring, failing, weeping. Each day coming full circle- beginning and ending with self-blame, self-flagellation.
It's a fear older than my first memory. It is my greatest fear. My fear of being alone.

Not being alone in an everyday sense. I actually enjoy "alone time." I am generally an independent and solitary person. No, I mean alone forever. Dying alone. Being alone in the way that my father is alone.

Pushing aside the calm, the pride, the anger, the fear, lies the sadness. Sadness and loneliness feel the same, but they are not. The sadness is grief. Mourning for what's been lost, for what might have been but will now never be, mourning for my hopes and expectations of us and of myself.
The loneliness is my foundation. I feel as though without it I would not know how or where to stand, how to breathe, how to exist in this time or place. It is older than I am. Uncomfortably comforting. Familiar. So familiar. It is the melancholy grey of a rainy fall day. A sun-less dreary week, cloud-cover impenetrable. It is a vicious place, though I fear it can be described no better than: Alone.
I feel as though it is the root of my existence. I would not know who to be, or how to be, without it. It is me. It has always been me. It has been there long before, and will remain long after, me.

And then you enter the room. I look at you and I feel a spark of light. I feel a tinge of happiness and hope. I feel all the cells of my body awaken, my skin exclaims with joy the way a child does when hearing the Ice Cream Man's jingle. My skin feels your phantom touch. My hands feel the gentleness, the exquisite softness of your fingers. My body pulls yours close and is nourished by the warmth and the your comfort. I look at you and my only thought, my only feeling, is the desire to be near you. I see you... and for just a moment I feel so much less hopeless.

Our reality brings me crashing back- falling down through the layers of silver and pink, of blue, grey and black.
But for a moment... for a moment I just see you.