Careful what you wish for

I could tell you the number of days. But I won't. I remember when people, friends, had done that. My skin crawled for them. The focus seemed clinging and sad.

You learn that it's not like that, it really isn't. The calendar counts for you, every day the number in the year and how many left. There are days you cannot help but wake up and remember.

Atop a bookshelf in my home office, a red rose. It can't help but reveal time. It can't help but show its age. I'm afraid to pick it up for fear it will lose a petal. When I finally do touch it, I know it will disintegrate. Rose dust in the air and on the shelf.

When he handed me the rose, he forever changed the meaning.

I watch the sun rise. Creeping slight and slow. Grey to white to gold. From no shadows across my path to long lines of grey from the Pine trees, bright lines of gold stretching between. A smattering of yellow leaves on the ground.

I should be moved but I don't feel a thing.

I'm stopped at a red light on Memorial. The breeze picks up. Yellow leaves fall from branches above. The sun hits their path down. It looks like rain, glistens like dance. It looks like laughter.

It's right there but it's out of reach.

The clouds move. The sky sighs. I feel it like cardboard.

I pretend all day that it's another day in another life. I give myself that challenge before getting out of bed. I don't know why I wanted to step aside today, but I do.

It's become a window separating me from what I can see and what I can touch. The window is on my heart. Do not feel. Just for a day, I thought. Not to pretend he's still here, but maybe to pretend he's not gone.

Today is Sunday, the 6th. It's been nine months to the day and date. It's the day and date partnering that get to me. I didn't want to see the clock all day. I didn't want to remember the playback details that the hour shoves my way.

Fooliosh girl, I am. It's not possible what I have tried. Nothing else is in reach, no beauty, no joy, no vision, no magic, if I don't take this as well.

All day long I could have told you the number of days - too damn many for this girl to believe.