Blindsided...

How weird is this, I haven't thought of him in a long time. At least not in this way. I talk to him, talk about him. He's been part of my life for over half of it. Even if we're not together anymore he's still part of my life. How odd to miss something, yet not want it back. Telling someone a story earlier about teaching him a lesson must have stirred something distant in my mind. Awhile after, a long forgotten image popped into my head. Out of the blue, I was in the middle of working (how I hate the way my brain functions sometimes). Walking into the living room seeing him and the boy curled up together, the baby in his pajamas still clutching his bottle. Sleeping. They were my whole world. They were my home. So today, on a random Tuesday, an image from easily 13-14 years ago caused a small rip, a reopening of an old wound that doesn't seem to want to stay closed. It ached for awhile, still that same pain as if no time has passed. For a moment only, this will pass. For a moment, I felt a flicker of the girl who stood in the living room that night, that one who died a slow painful death starting in November of '01. The girl I try to forget ever existed because it hurts too much to miss her and to look in the mirror at what remains.

"There've been mornin's when I couldn't wake up
& evenin's when I couldn't sleep
My life will be fine for months at a time
Then I'll break down & cry for a week
'Cause when I told you I'd love you forever
I know you didn't think it was true
But forever is nothin'
Compared to some nights I've been through
In these years after you"

-John Conlee