Sounds like rain....

The ice is melting outside the office window, spilling all over the back yard. A light is on across the courtyard...I can see a teal blue chair and a red tablecloth.

Sometimes I wish I led a secret life, one full of adventure, high stakes, travel to distant lands. Sometimes I wish I had , I don't know. Maybe the chance to do things over again. Maybe to see into the future and know what will happen. Maybe to have conversations that should have taken place before death came creeping in. Maybe the complete self esteem I think I have sometimes. A chance to right the wrongs, to heal, to be important.

Maybe I should be sleeping. The bed is nice and warm. KFC is waiting for me to stop typing.

Maybe I just need a good cry. A long, emotional cry. I haven't had one that wasn't grief related in a long time.

I remember being pure, innocent. I remember those days like they were a lifetime ago. I remember, well, everything. Things I wish I could forget. Things I need to forget. Maybe the tears will come now, thinking on my life, things that I've done and had done to me. Wonderful, horrible, beautiful, terrifying things. Moments frozen with no flame large or hot enough to melt them away.

Maybe it's the season creeping in. Maybe it's PMS. Maybe I'm tired.

I don't care what the reason is.

Something is shifting, swirling just under the surface, deep enough that I can't tell what it is. Fear? Something deeper? Something minor, magnified by the late hour and recent developments?

I want to strip off my robe and go running through a field, the sun beaming down, feeling the grass and twigs beneath my feet. I want to feel the summer wind blowing away my worries. There are so many wishes that I have that are coming to light, wishes to hold people, to cradle and protect, myself included. I want to dive into water that is so blue it blends in with the sky. I want to be weightless and floating. I want a good belly laugh. I want to laugh so hard I spit iced tea on a file cabinet while playing Nintendo in a room that allowed no drinks.

I want to forget that it hasn't even been a year since he put the gun to his chest.

Yes. Here come the tears.

Washing away last Christmas when I was so mad I could barely look at him. Last Thanksgiving when he said I was his favorite niece and I replied in a cold way, I'm your only niece. Early on a cold January morning when I got the phone call.

I want to forget those damn memories frozen in place, hard as steel, always lurking.

There is no time limit on grief. I know that as much as the next person. But I feel I have so much to grieve over, that I don't know where to begin.

The tears were brief but needed. Cleansing me. Running down my face like the melting ice is running down the drains outside the window. Hearing the changes coming. Quiet as a grenade. Sneaking in behind me, covering my eyes and hearing it whisper, guess who? Smacking my head into a brick wall, making me see every color invented swirl just behind my retinas. Feeling the cold slink over my flesh, goosebumps doing nothing to warm me.

I really needed to get that out.

Now I can go to sleep.

And hope to all that's holy that the dreams don't come back tonight.