2 years and goodbye

The weather is prosaic.
Dark clouds, with bright sunshine breaking through.
Blustery winds.
On again off again rain showers.
Dampness in the air.

2 years is a long time.
A long time to keep opening up and revealing yourself.
Time and again.
A long time to spend with someone and never really know them.

2 years is a long time to prepare for an ending that you can't really prepare for. It's a long time to have a safety net; how do you prepare for that safety net to disappear overnight?

I sought counselling because I was grieving, angry, and mentally unwell.
2 years later the only part that doesn't remain is the grieving part. Not in the ever present way it did back then.
It's taken 2 years to realise I can't be fixed and be made "whole" and "perfect" the way I so desperately desire.
Knowing that and not desiring it are  as different as fire and water.

Hours of ranting and raging, crying and laughing.
Hours of my life, gone.
Hours of who I was, who I am and who I could be.
Hours that have set me up for this next step; the step after the ending.

What is my life going to be without you?
I'm taking this next step and I know I'll want to tell you. 
And you won't be there for me to tell. 

2 years is a long time to be saying goodbye.

This is me admitting defeat.
This is my body overruling my mind.
This is me giving in.

After months holding as firm as I can against my depression, it is the sickness that laid waste to my life last summer that comes back to destroy my ambitions.

I'm not going to pretend I was ready. Hours of running time taken away by the headaches, muscle knots, foot troubles. My body isn't made for running, with it's tight hips and tense shoulders. And now with its grumbling tummy.
I can barely walk at times the pain is so bad. Stopping to throw up, stopping to double over in pain, puts even walking out of the question.

This is me flying the white flag and surrendering.

This is me wasting no more tears over the missed opportunity and feeling like a failure, because as that race door closes, a door to learning opens. Learning to let go of the frustration. Learning to find a silver lining.

Knowing that there's an answer out there somewhere, Just got to find it. 

In the darkness

In the darkness I write poetry
With my feet.
I pound the pavement and underfoot
Are metaphors for life and love.

I ask silently for peace
And strength.
Learning each day this distorted world
Requires so much of it.

Shadows play across the distance
And scare me.
Confused, I turn down empty roads
Running as if from ghosts of my past.

But I can never run far enough
Or fast enough.
And the pavements carry me along
As I write poetry in the darkness.