Vicious Reprisal

I am barely here. I barely have the presence to speak these words. I am not without my strengths, but now, I find myself enveloped in an emptiness too great to overcome with strength alone. I am still here. But only barely.

Though I strive to be brave, decisive, and kind, it makes no difference to the emptiness. It knows me so much better than I know it. Haunted by the feeling that I am being watched and judged without my knowledge or consent, my every move incites questions that have no answers.

I make no claim on depression; there is far too much of love and life and joy in the simple things left in me. Actually, I am happy where I am. My grief, my vicious reprieve, grows with the knowledge that change is creeping up on me. I can count the days left of the life I have. So precious and so few, it hurts just to think of it.

I would run away if I could, but what I really want is to stay -- for time to stand still and the changes to stop in their tracks. What cowardly things I think. I've broken my own heart a hundred times just contemplating a future where I'm not here doing what I do with the people I know and love. But it is impossible to stay.

Shall I wait for desperation to force my hand? Must I wait for this familiar life to end before envisioning a new one? Many years ago, I would have jumped at the chance for change. I know now that I was only running away. She was lucky then to find a safe haven -- that younger version of myself. Or perhaps she just knew who she was and where she needed to go.

Perhaps the most frightening change of all is the one inside.

The simple poetry of Frost comes to mind,

"I will be telling this with a sigh,

Somewhere ages and ages hence,

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

If only life were more like a walk in the woods. Then at least, there would be paths to follow. For now, I can only follow these thoughts in circles.

Until change finds me trembling and unprepared, and we dance awkwardly under a strange sky.

A vicious reprisal of the love I once had for life.