Ends and beginnings

It's odd how new things can begin before the old things have ended... like new lives that start before the previous ones have ceased. It's like I'm caught in this strange middle ground of anxious apprehension leading up to my trip back to the Valley.

It's been nearly two years since I've stepped foot in the valley where I used to live. After walking away in hopes of being able to return, I've never gone back. I tried, I hoped, I prayed and was miserable about it for a long time. But the "No Entry" sign remained on the door to that former life. I've found new doors and have started to forget what that old home was like. But now that I'm returning to the doorstep, I'm not sure what to expect.

I haven't looked into her eyes in these two years. We've barely spoken. Many of the words that have crossed the abyss of e-land between us have held bitter poison and barbed tips. They were our weapons, as if our only way to stop hurting was to inflict more pain on the other. We fought over things I promised myself never to fight about. In retrospect, it was never about the things... but always about what was never resolved and about all the heartache I felt when she kept telling me, in a roundabout way, that she simply didn't want me anymore.

This is my past. This is me. This scar is bigger although more invisible than the one above my eye that came from my stitches from when I was 5, or the one running across a small piece of my gut as doctors tore out an evil organ from my belly. I think of the "scar" in Lord of the Flies... how it might grow over after a while, but it will always exist somehow. I met a girl who told me that this trial of the past few years is as much me as the books I've read or the family I've loved. But don't we all want to hide our scars? How do we wear them like jewels? Or a headdress? Or a medal of valour?

I've become so happy in my decisions over the past year, but as our meeting looms (to finalize our end), I just don't know what I'm going to feel...relief? Anxiety? Remorse? Jealousy? Hatred? 

Love?

The only thing I hope is that this last year has made me strong... strong enough to deal with whatever will course through my veins on my arrival. After a coffee date with a friend today, I realized how much it has been on my mind... it came out in a spewing remembrance of all that went on and all the wounds that were caused and all the frustration I felt. And until I finished with the ranting purge, I realized I was nearly out of breath, panting, wondering where it all came from.

All that remains is the actual event. I wonder, I dream, and I wait. Let come what may. What will happen, will be. And so.

T