The Open Matt Project

Birth Stone

There's a collection now, of thoughts and feelings I've been unable to coalesce into anything meaningful about Her. Some are introspective, with lessons learned and character defined. Some are historical, stories of the past or pictures and letters around which our history wove. Most have been torrential in their recursive waves of pain and embrace.

It's the very act of living this that is becoming the vehicle for escape, if such a thing is to be. Should I find it heartening I've been here before? In these very pages, I've written about my survival of the last time. Should it be heartening to know it will never happen again? I'm neither fool enough nor wise enough to believe that. It's simply the tide of pain that comes in and flows out and I embrace or am shattered.

More than a year, that process has managed to tumble and toss the searing wound of Her. In and out. Unrequested, unscheduled, uncontrolled, She comes to me and leaves. Back and forth. Memories become memories of memories. The jaggged edges of Her are worn with each passing. Painful feelings become merely powerful feelings which pass into personal feelings, embraced.

Now the wild inferno of shards of Her have cooled, smoothed, and become solid. I smell Her coming, feel Her in the air, and can recognize the many signs of her approach. Ever more, these signs are my own. I'm aware of this, this collection of expressions I've gathered, as a dialog or a diagram of my experience, and I write it with the hardened pearl she left me.