No Disappointments

This morning the air was cold and damp, the grass was frosted over, and very little changed in terms of light and temperature from dawn to dusk. But the leaves were colorful, the crisp air felt fresh, and the rain hit the pavement with a soothing, poetic sound. This time last year if I woke up on a cold day I remember thinking that I didn’t miss seasons. A cold morning or a cloudy day sent me down a dark hole in my mind that I didn’t know what to blame on but the atmosphere. I was content to live in a city with no regard for variety and to deal with the monotony of waking up everyday in the same climate - where looking out the window or stepping out onto the porch left me none the wiser to where we might be in the calendar year.

This time last year I thought I had outgrown my enjoyment of music - that maybe music was just something for young people who were falling in love or getting their heart broken. I thought maybe that with the predictability of adulthood came a certain apathy towards such things as lyrics. That the effect of a melodic crescendo was lost on those who had settled down in life.

This time last year I had never left anyone without someone else to go to. No matter how bad it got, no matter how mean or cold or brash you got towards me I would’ve have gone. Because this time last year I felt so empty on my own that any sliver of attention, of attachment, even if it wasn’t love, made all the difference to my sense of fulfillment. Though in retrospect I use the word fulfillment very loosely. The value you added to my life was that of a band-aid, and I spent most of our time together making sure I didn’t feel the pain of ripping you off my skin. But now things are different. 

Today was a beautiful day. I admired the red leaves falling from the trees as they transition into their state of deep rest for the winter. It felt nice to breathe in cold damp air instead of hot desert city smog. It felt nice to wake up cold on my own rather than be suffocated by the heat of your body next to me. To stretch out my limbs if I wanted to. Even without you there I used to curl myself into the corner to make room for you presence in my mind. When you weren’t present I used to fill in for your judgments with my inner voice. You taught it well and enriched its vocabulary with insults. You made yourself a home inside of me because I never learned how to lock the door. But things are different now. 

I was awake for the sunrise but the sun didn’t make it’s way through the clouds all day, as if it had taken the day off from work - like it had called in sick and the clouds were relaying the message. When it came time to set, the sun simply decided to transition its way into night time without getting out of bed. It was a nice lazy Sunday for the Sun today too. 

The rain on the pavement created a smell that though objectively might not have been entirely pleasant, ignited a sense of nostalgia that smelled almost sweet. Like the bitter aftertaste of coffee that warms your insides on an early morning - comforting and smooth.

But most importantly, what made it a beautiful day today was the feeling I felt inside. Yes, all along I’ve been attributing my moods to the environment around me when I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have blamed the empty feeling in me all last year on the sun and it’s absence and I will not atribute my sense of peace this morning to the rain. Seeing happy children make their way through their neighborhoods, sheets draped over their heads, looking through the frayed gashes made for their eyes, carrying pillowcases to fill with candy made me feel as full and fulfilled as those pillowcases will be by the end of the night. But I will not atribute that to my happiness either. Though it is funny, children wearing sheets and carrying pillowcases expecting you to believe they’re ghosts when what they more accurately resemble is a Bed Bath & Beyond display come to life. And yet, they are never assumed to be anything other than ghosts. 

The neighborhood was alive with childish screams of joy and excitement. Even the sound of siblings quarreling over ring pops and the tone of parents using their reprimanding voices, threatening to revoke their children’s candy privileges, sent me into a strange concoction of a mood - happiness, serenity, melancholy, and delight. 

This time last year I was lonely as all hell, and though I go unnoticed in the lively scene of pumpkin shaped goody buckets being toted around by walking sheets, I feel so far away from my feelings of last year. Alone but not lonely - not in the least bit. But again, it’s not the sheet ghosts or the pumpkin lanterns, or the tantrums that erupt from crashed down sugar highs that I will pin my newfound sense of peace on. It’s that for the first time in a long time I have let you go. And today was a beautiful day because it didn’t disappoint me. Because I wasn’t filled with expectations - good or bad. I didn’t set myself up to crash like the kids on their sugar highs. I didn’t spend the better part of the day brooding in resentment, living in my feelings of betrayal and holding my grudges against justice. Strangely, today I was thankful. I was thankful that you killed me last year. And if you run free for the rest of your life I won’t care. Because I may have hinged my life on you but there’s no sense to doing that in death. And honestly, nothing I experienced while living compares to the freedom I have now as a ghost. What better way to make sure you can’t reach me anymore than to kill me. So thank you.