{ looking back }

there's usually something painful about looking back, and i usually tell myself i shouldn't do it. because i was made to idealize and vilify, there's not much middle ground i'll willingly claim. it's always been a weakness: having to love one thing and hate another, never being able to hold all forces and factors in balance. one of the only right things he ever said about me is that i'm mercurial. i oscillate. i peak high, bottom out low, and don't spend much time in the manageable frequencies.

(sorry, everyone that knows me.

i'm sure it can't be easy.)

i think the magnitude of my oscillation has lessened over the past few years, but i still have flares of temper and onsets of lethargic wistfulness. i find it exhausting to fit into the social culture of the area in which i live --- everyone's all, "i'm fine, you're fine, we're fine," and i'm all, "today was the worst day ever, that woman's footwear made me want to die, and no, i absolutely don't want a drink, because if i start i'll never stop."

(for the record, "fine" is officially my least favorite word

to describe a human's state of being,

unless we're referring to his/her level of attractiveness.)

for the first time in awhile though, i'm enjoying looking back. what i see fills me with the opposite of regret --- i can't find the word or emotion to encapsulate it. but the more i look back, the richer and more real i become. although this most recent getaway didn't feel half as desperate as some of the trips i've taken in the past four years,

i'm beginning to see that it might be the trip i needed most. 

so many things i've done have been to survive --- to fill a space so wide it hurt to be. sleeping through the cool idaho nights and widening my eyes at the bison herds of south dakota filled some of those spaces, kept me glued together, and helped to pass many injured hours. however, my most recent travel west met me in a place of much more wholeness than those other trips (though goodness knows i've a long way to go), and it's been such an unexpected --- yes, i'm going to use this word --- blessing.

experiencing something/someone/someplace on a three-quarters-full soul is an entirely different thing than needing something/someone/someplace to face another day, or another hour. my brain knows this isn't a revelation, but my soul is gloriously surprised.

{ this photo was taken breathlessly from my window seat on the final descent into seattle }

But because truly being here means so much; because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way
keeps calling to us.  Us, the most fleeting of all.
Once for each thing.  Just once; no more.  And we too,
just once.  And never again.  But to have been
as one, completely, even if only once:
to have been one with this world, never can be undone.

{ from the 9th Elegy, rainer maria rilke }