The Random Happiness Files ~/~ And Around And Around We Go

§ Part Two §

On foot, camera in hand, the landscape surrounded me. With gently rising pastures, broken only by hedgerows and ancient split rail fences.

The only sound, the birds and the crunch of the gravel underfoot.

Those days will be remembered as much for their dichotomy, as for the grief.

Suppose, really, all four years with Tim were the best of times, and the worst of times. Cliche though that may be.

For some reason, though. For some inexplicable reason, those days afterwards stand out for me this morning.

We don’t necessarily always get to pick, so I’ll take what I can get. Maybe it was more that I held on to that happiness, as I knew it may be in short supply in the days, months, year to come.

At the very least, I knew my days in that wild West Grey County were numbered. Decisions needed to be made – but not yet. Not just yet.

So I walked, and walked, and walked. Down, and around that giant block. Back down old train trackways, we had once discovered together. Past the llamas, and that farm at the corner where the old eccentric lives. Down gravel roads, leash in hand, Irish and I transversed the gently rolling landscape.

It was different this time, this loss. After my ex-husband and I separated, I too was on my own. Yet back then I had become sad, lonely and unmoored. Yes, I thought about those other days, that other ending.

But I wasn’t that person anymore and hadn’t been for a very long time. Maybe this loss had finally made me see the truth of it.