{ peace of mind / so hard to find }

i saw a friend tonight. she said, you seem better than you have in six months. i said, i'm better and worse. but yes...better. 

today i drove on the road, past { that place }, the site of so many offenses and all those tears. i felt the old pain somewhere on the far left side of my consciousness, a fleeting ache and then it was gone. i reclaimed that stretch of road and made a mental note to do the same thing for many of the locations that have housed loss for me and continued to be flagged, forbidden, difficult to revisit. i must revisit those places. i wasn't strong enough before. now i am a new woman, and i can walk the charred ground without choking on memories of smoke. for some reason this is important to me today: reclaiming what was ruined. i don't need to see wildly good things happening in those places yet. i just want to neutralize them. it's high time i begin to breathe more easily as i pass through the parts of the world that have come out from under me. at this point in time, no one is keeping me from doing that but myself.

we all have to let go of things in our lives, i said. it's hard for everyone, but it's especially hard for me. or maybe everyone feels that way. she looked me in the eye and said, at least you know that about yourself. and it's not a bad thing, you know.

i smiled at her. yeah. i guess it's not. i just take my time.

take the time you need, my friends.
really learn what you need to learn.
don't skim over the things that hurt.
hurt your hurts. get to know them
so that when the time comes to say
goodbye, you know exactly what
you're letting go. give pain the time
it needs to be heard. then it will leave
you, knowing it served its purpose.