Losing flint

It’s been sobering to go over all these old blog posts today. It seems that Blogger has a new look, a slightly different format and that alone made the stop today worthwhile. It seems that by going away, not only from my blog writing but from Port Orchard as well, has made my life that much better. Why, you may ask, considering all that I’ve written here that might read contrary-wise. Well, I think it has to do a lot with having been able to step back, observe, defuse, detoxify, let go of all the junk and bitterness and ghosts and well worn crap that was holding me down, keeping me back and stopping me from moving forward. Being away from here, from our old haunts,  has helped drain the swamp, per se, and I forever thankful for it.

Now, that insight could only be seen by looking at my writing today, I have to tell you. I went deep into the blog, dived into my old notes to you, and baby, I’ll have to keep them here as a reminder of how powerful an influence you were to me there in PO, no matter how biter or harsh they may seem to be. I am a year and a half into this place, into my stay here in the Treasure Valley, and I must tell you, it’s all to the good. I suffered a hard blow to the heart when I went east to New York and Cleveland last fall but my latest trip to Washington helped put that travel jones all in perspective. And for awhile I kept thinking, too, that if I involved myself with someone I would somehow find the magic again, find a way to live life in the way that I was living it with you. Somedays it just doesn’t pay to think.

Somehow time and space and distance and hard work and kids, all of it, has had its way with me, softened me, given me some perspective, taken a big bite out of that hardness and in turn, replaced that bite with a new kind of skin, one less flinty, one more akin to lamb’s wool or baby’s breath. I feel better, less hostile, less beat up, less flighty, now that time has passed. I feel more rounded and less inclined to fight. I feel that being there in Port Orchard, so long after the kids left, so long after we split, was the thing that both made me and broke me all at the same time. Being away from the Kitsap house, coming here to Boise, doing all those side trips to Kitsap County, have all sharpened me up, gone the distance towards healing me, making me see things differently and working some kind of juju that say’s to me “live, man”. And I have to tell you, I have been, in spades.

So, in keeping with the rest of these posts I will close with what I said to you years ago and will say to you always:

“I love you, M, to within an inch of my life and possibly closer. You are still my friend now and will always be. My door is always open to you and my heart will be forever yours. See me now, later or over the rainbow and I’ll tell you no different.”

Come as you are, kiddo, I’ll be waiting for you at sunset.

WHMB