“You know, Uncle, I’ve lost whole parts of myself since we are traveling together. Layers & layers of “ME” gone. Peeled away, discarded, surplus to requirements. Is that what travelling does? Brings us back to what we truly are?”

[“THE ROM: WALKING IN THE PATHS OF THE GYPSIES” ROGER MOREAU]

As you pause
a memory filters through.
As if they reside in subconscious
breaking through the veil.

Sunday November 21, 1999
If you put a frog in hot water he’ll try to jump out. However, if you put it first into cold water and slowly increase the heat, it will grow accustom and not realize it is burning to death. That is what I have allowed to happen. I’ve slowly allowed this with R to slowly burn me. I’ve wasted so many years in this inner stew. I’ve completely allowed myself to be broken down, bit by bit.

I have an opportunity now to finally change all that. Scared as I may be as to what the future holds, I have a good future, filled with hope. For the first time in a very long time I feel whole again. I am myself. I am strong and I will no longer allow myself to be treated this way.

I will not let him suck me down any farther. IF he was so unhappy why couldn’t he have had the decency to leave? Why string me along thinking he wants to work things out when he has no intention of doing ANY work.

He is so a self-absorbed. All he is concerned with is his own pleasure, about his own needs. He has not considered mine at all. He has not even had the decency to be honest with me.

Blithering strains of indignation
and I wallow in its midst.
It is not mine
not anymore.
With truth I am set free.

I don’t know if I can ever describe grief again. It is so many things, at different times, for different reasons. Whether it be over the end of a marriage, or the end of a life. From shattered illusions to creeping fits of denial, to all out wailing and tearing of hair. It is truths once hidden free, lies made irrelevant and all things become muted, without voice, we can get lost in those spheres, for a while.

What shall my grief cost.
When I’ve spent my last tear.
When I’ve nothing left.

To truth and reason, kindness and forgiveness I shall pay my allegiance.

February 24, 2000
I’ve travelled merely blocks, but in some sense I have travelled miles. I have stripped myself clean and been ripped away from many an illusion. I feel rejuvenated and inspired – more real, more me.

~ poem from 2013.
~ book quotes from Old Journal from late 90s early 00s jotted down from stuff reading at the time.
~ journal entries as noted.

NEXT: The Lady of the Cellar | Conclusion