Never Black or White

I think about how he made me laugh
then remember how he didn't

I think of how he was there for me

and then of the ways in which he let me down

For every positive, I try to find the negative to make it hurt less. To make it not feel so bad that even now, after four months have passed, his car is not outside my house when I come home from work. And he is not inside waiting to have dinner and watch a movie. 

He left a confusing sliver of hope for the future that day many months ago. I see now it was cowardice, or trying to "be nice", or simply not knowing for sure what he was thinking. What followed was an indifference which expanded like spilled molasses. Slow and steady. So slow and steady. His actions said one thing, his words something slightly different, none of it quite succinct. All of it confusing.

It was slow and agonizing, until suddenly I finally opened my eyes to that "actions speak louder than words" thing.

I have shut the door now and I know that's for the best. I know this is where the real pain comes in, and it has. All the nice memories are coming back, uninvited, unwelcome. I am especially uneasy about these emotional landmines which I know will explode without warning for the unforeseeable future. But for now, I observe them, react to them, and move them along. 

Today wasn't so bad.

Until I arrived home, and I stepped up to my porch and got a waft of fall air, the first of it's kind this season, along with the scent of a burning wood. This is where I lose it as the first landmine explodes and I remember; getting lost in a corn maze, sitting by a bonfire and sharing cider donuts, holding hands like dorks.

I enter the house, sit on my step, and Harlow takes her spot, under my face, to catch my tears in her wiry fur and tolerate my blubbering. I know I have to let it come. It's the only way it will leave. 

And I really want it to leave.

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”

― Elie Wiesel