ALONE, BUT NOT LONELY

The sun is rising and the wind has finally died down. The birds are starting their morning songs, and a lone coyote just ambled through the back yard towards the woods. Here, the house is still and quiet as everyone sleeps. Out there she is probably lost in whatever dreamworld she visits after a night out with friends and family, hopefully resting, still and peaceful in a bed I will never lay in.

I have spent the night listening to the wind rattle the house, and watching the evergreens move to an odd rhythm. Occassionally I went outside for a smoke, wandering through the pines and listening to the windsong through their branches. It was not a bad night, maybe just a heavy one.

Here, everyone was happy to see me for a day, they greeted me warmly, said they loved me, spent a few minutes talking with me, and then went back about their business. I am loved here, but in a rather perfunctory way. I am loved for what I am to everyone here, and not really recognized as anything beyond that.This is ok. I am pretty much irrelevent as far as playing any kind of important role anymore in anyones life.This is as it should be- it means that I have done a good job preparing everyone for living their own lives and finding their own happiness.

I spent the night listening and looking for things in the wind, and everything I found there had to do with her.
I sat in a house that is a home to others, but is pretty much just a place I pass through from time to time. I sat here alone and sleepless, off in my own little world, and never for a moment did I feel lonely.

I pictured her out on the town, finally getting to have an evening of drunken stupidity with friends, and I smiled. I thought of the way she smiles and the way her cheekbones rise slightly when she does, of how she tells me she loves me and the soft pressure of her hand in mine as we drive somewhere. I thought of how she manages to display a grace and humanity under any kind of situation, and how her inherent decency shines through in everything she says and does. I thought of her looking into me as we make love, and how here eyes get heavy and lidded at certain moments of passion.

I thought of all these things and so much more, and at a certain point I realized that the night wasn't a dark lonely place. I will always wonder about what things would have been like had I met her in a different time or a different place, but I also realize that what we have given each other here and now cannot be minimized or dismissed, and is so much more than I have ever had that I have to consider myself lucky and fulfilled, under any circumstance.

Yeah- I spent the night sleepless and alone, but she surrounded me the entire time, whispering to me on the wind, dancing with the pines, and filling me with an oddly peaceful feeling.

Not a bad night at all.