today: volume at 22

this year i will only turn the volume up to 27 (my age) and no louder, unless extraordinary circumstances call for extremes.

today the window was halfway down, creating a wind tunnel sound that was comforting in its blue noise rushing through my left ear.

on my left hand is a ring, good and true as the heart of she who made it. it's so light i can't even feel it. { for the first time he understood that love weighed nothing - barbara kingsolver. }

still wracking my brain for an explanation even though there is likely none to be discovered, at least not now. { it's not meant to feel like this / not what i planned at all . . . - imogen heap. }

wait - love does not weigh nothing. it weighs something. the weight of its risk and its pain crushes me from the outside until i stand to my full height and wear it like a shield.

what i have felt and written is true and real. nothing can take that away from me.
i am stripped of everything. starting over.
hoping i can trust enough to hope for the best, despite all evidence to the contrary.
what are outcomes? what are decisions?
our best laid plans topple at the slightest wind.
what we think we want, what we think we need . . .
in the end, what do we really know?

love.
that thing whose existence seems so uncertain at times,
but is always, always there.

when in doubt,
give.
{bjork}