{ this is dangerous }

is this living

or is it something else?

{ daughter }

i've been seeing so many beautiful things lately; every time i round the corner, there's something startling and lonely that i can't get out of my head for hours. this afternoon i pulled over on the side of the road to take a picture of the late autumn sun coming through the trees. it was that beautiful. my coworkers make fun of me because i'm often standing in the empty parking lot as they drive off at the end of the day, taking pictures of the sky.

i suppose the reasonable thing would be to post the picture that i took today. i had every intention of doing so, but suddenly it feels private. like a thing i had today in the cold, in the last-chance afternoon light, that was meant just for me.

----------------------------

i just read this:

how long they choose to love you
will never be your decision.

it goes against my nature to be okay with things like this --- things we all know are true and that we can't do a damn thing about. maybe part of me used to believe truths like this didn't apply to me; i would be the woman swept off her feet at a young age, destined for eternal happiness and complete affirmation, saved from doubts and spine-curving loneliness.

but tonight i read those words and feel the weight of their truth impressed on my life, on the way things ended, on the way things always end. i feel it scratched on the floor of my soul and in the imprint of my teeth on my lower lip. i am finally resigned to this truth and i resent it no more. three years ago i would've considered this concession a defeat. tonight i know that in accepting the enmity of this truth (the truth that none of us has any control over who loves us for how long, the truth that someone could choose not to love us) i have won. no more of my blood will be spilled in the fight against it. tonight i'm holding sacred the blood in my veins, the scars on my heart, and the crimson tide that rises, ready to swallow whole the jagged line of life's endless shore.