Day 951: When Dad left for his Maker

Like a wave, they catch me off guard and take me to crannies dense with your memories. Aisles I’ve been eluding find my steps and pull me in, and before I know I am tracing paths, the same old paths I have been avoiding, but I guess I haven’t been doing a very good job of remaining hidden and not be found. They do get to me, in the end. They always do!

Once again they found me. I was hiding in the corners behind peeling walls and broken wardrobes. That’s where they found me. Your thoughts, they ripped me to pieces again. After this long, you’d expect me to get used to. Truth be told, I’m not even trying to. I let myself be blown to bits, be drowned to the depths, be burnt and wasted. There’s a different kind of pleasure in that pain, as I’ve realised. Happiness may be ethereal; but the ache, I know that is here to stay.

Not again, never again, am I trying to leave this ache astray. Learning to breathe with them in the same room as I. It pinches in the beginning, makes the eyes burn, and tears roll down at times, just like when you get too close to fire. But then I remind myself – the more this ache envelops me, the less room will there be for any other outlandish pain to swamp me. So, no, I deny myself the pleasure and wrap myself in the same blanket as the ache that has been a persistent tenant of my room for the past three years. I am getting used to. I know I’ll get there. In time, I will.