It takes a long time for the heart to catch up with the brain. Maybe not so much to catch up, but to adjust to the reality of the present.
On facebook the other day, the site so kindly offered me a video that said 8 years ago, I had friended my dad. He’s been gone for three years now, and the loss is still there, but it doesn’t hurt so much. And when I am ambushed by memory, the stutter in my step isn’t so apparent. For months, it was unreal, even though there was the funeral, and the kiss on his cold forehead, and our holding hands around his grave.
Then it is not so unusual to have the ending of a relationship go through the same process of grieving and acceptance. It is exacerbated without the tangible and definitive closing. I ripped a picture, I returned gifts. But there is still a connection that is felt that gives lie to the ending, so forestalls the goodbye and exacerbates the loss.
Hope is a thing with feathers.
The feathers needs be plucked. I have been systematically doing so. Today, I am without feathers.
So we are at an end, and there will be some occasional conversation and perhaps a hug because I think I need that much to feel it wasn’t all a lie. And there will still be that stutter step, but I think I am clear. I am done.