Like a tree, I will grow

Loss obliges us to stop...to pause a little longer in the mirror. Wondering, looking intently; feigning a disinterested glance at a person barely recognized. We are asked to live a hundred lifetimes each day; asked to be made painfully aware that every breath silently brings us closer to further unknowns. Sorrow obtrusively enters the room and roughly grabs my collar. I am unrepentantly plunged into the icy pool of pain. I drink it in. I am sick with it.

Yesterday, I found myself sitting in front of a certain Starbucks enjoying a cup of Pike Place Roast. Try it. It reminds me of better times. Sigur Rós was guiding my reading of Anna Karenina. I consistently find myself transplanting myself into the characters created within this work. It appears that Tolstoy not only studied my life, but continually chooses to reference it. Approaching 500 pages, I came across this: “She had in her that excitement and quickness of judgment that appear in men before a battle, a struggle, in dangerous and decisive moments of life, those moments when once and for all a man shows his worth and that his whole past has not been in vain but has been a preparation for those moments.”
I suppose everyone, admittedly or not, hopes, at least once, to encounter such a moment. To rise to the challenge. To “look my demons in the eye, lay bare my chest” and triumphantly shout “Do your best to destroy me.” To measure ourselves, prove that the air which expires from our lungs holds purpose—a purpose holier and purer than anything comprehensible at the time. In those moments I became that soldier before a battle. Scared shitless, crouching in a boat, watching the sands grow as large as boulders. Who, despite his fear, rose from that boat, ran upon that foreign shore, fought, wept and died. Not because he desired it, not because he somehow conquered fear, or became brave. He knows bravery is an illusion. He did it because he believed his life existed for something bigger. In those moments, I stood upon that table, shouted to the world, declaring myself, making my intentions known. Will I be found wanting? I don’t know. I am raw, I am dangerous.

These moments of strength, however, appear to be nothing more than mirages.

I read something today. I wrote something today. I thought about something. I took a nap and dreamt about something too. Despite all these something’s, I still have nothing, because some things have been and will always be tied to you.

I miss you.