When Robert passed, I was left shattered. I knew it while I was going through it. I spent at least a year crying when no one was watching, grasping stolen moments trying to feel…something, emoting broken lines in poetic verse only to myself.
Over 21 years later, I’m still unsure all the pieces were collected, that I was fully formed anew. In journals, I am finding cracks and crevices, not where the light got in, but where the shadows leaked out, I tear page after page, a burst in stops and starts, attempts toward understanding and an infinite lack of conclusions.
It’s a wonder I still wonder after all I’ve gone through and felt, but with the discarding of material things comes the discarding of that shattered girl, who I was and when I was, the discarding of myriad lingerings on hopes and fears.
In discarding things and words, I feel a creeping melancholy for a life unrealized yet an unburdening of weight on my spirit too long nourished as something that should be.
In discarding things and words, I am shedding a life and tuning toward another.
