Sunny Day, Stormy Night

"Don't allow your wounds to transform you into someone you are not." - Paulo Coelho

I am definitely starting to believe that I have some psychic, or in the same vein, at the very least, intuitive, ability, and that it is becoming more pronounced. Maybe it's because I have been practicing the language of "signs" or maybe it was just there all along and I have only now become more aware of it. I am bringing up this "ability" for a few reasons of which you will shortly understand.

This past Sunday morning was a beautiful, clear, cool day where I live. I slept in late and lounged around even later. I started by reading the book I am now engrossed in, Sarah's Key, and I started crying after reading a passage. I asked myself, "Why are you crying so hard?" and answered, "Because Life is so beautiful and so ugly at the same time. How can that be?" 

I put the book down finally deciding that I had better get up and get going and started by putting on a gentle cycle of laundry to wash the top and pants that I had worn for Thanksgiving Day festivities which had a few spill stains here and there. Yep, my clothes told me I had had a good Turkey Day! 

I hadn't heard from C. since late Wednesday night when he had written a short email wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving. He had told me on the Monday before Thanksgiving that he would be occupied with duties through Friday, but I had thought I would hear from him on Saturday and when that didn't happen I was definitely expecting to get a message from him on Sunday, which I did. Yay! 

I have become so used to him and seeing that I have a message in my inbox from him makes my heart beat just a little faster. In his email he told me he had been crazy busy for the last several days, had slept for the past 24 hours, needed to get caught up on logistic work and would look forward to "getting together" with me later in the afternoon. I felt happy. 

Then I went to get my nice clothes out of the wash and hang them to dry and I saw that one of my most favorite tops had a quarter-size bleach stain on it; it was ruined! I was really upset! I'm sure you know the feeling; on the one hand, trying to tell yourself it's only a shirt that's ruined, not a life, and on the other hand, feeling depressed because you don't have that many great tops and you can't afford to be buying more! I was just pissed off. Period. 

But since, as I said, it was such a lovely day, and because of the ruined top I felt like I had all this pent up frustration that I needed to be free of, I thought I would go and sit out on the deck in the bright sunshine and try to chill. 

Then, I thought, "L., you feel good enough today, why don't you try to go take a walk?" Well, I hadn't walked my old two mile route in probably close to a year-and-a-half, maybe even two, because of going through three knee surgeries and the rehab that went with that, and also dealing with feeling so poorly because of my constant bouts of nausea. But Sunday, midday, I did feel good enough, and I really needed to walk off my frustrated energy. 

It felt good to be out. My knee was doing fine even at the fast pace I was trying to force on it. I decided since it was my first attempt really getting at all physical in such a long time that I would just go a mile-and-a-half. I was listening to my iPod, enjoying the fresh air and thinking. 

A lot of my thinking was of C. and how happy I was to hear from him that morning after days of him being absent, and how much I looked forward to the afternoon when we could spend our time "together." And then, out of nowhere, a strange thought came into my mind. I thought, "Maybe you should take a break from C. for a month." I felt, what a weird thing to think! "Why would I want to do that?" I answered back, "What would be the reason for such a thing?" I had the vague feeling that it had something to do with it possibly making C. want me more, appreciate me even more deeply, but I already felt like he was extraordinarily generous in telling me how much he appreciated me as it was. But my mind persisted in making me wonder if it was a good thing that I was always making myself so readily available to him. I mean if he said, "Lets 'chat' at 2PM on Saturday," I was at my computer ready by noon! (Sometimes, our "conversations" would last for hours! We had really been able to spend a lot more time "together" even though his schedule was crazy and he was getting at most four or five hours asleep a night). But, my train of thinking continued to say to me, "Why would you spend any time away from him when you had spent all those months, when he was "gone," yearning for just such a chance to "be" with him as you are getting now?" So, I just chalked the thought up to strange, crazy, weird, not one that made sense, put it out of my mind, and kept on walking.

About a half hour after getting back home I did go out and sit in the sunshine on my deck. It felt glorious. I was still listening to my iPod and the sound of "ding" interrupted the music. I was like Pavlov's dog because that ding meant a message from C. had come in. Now every time I heard that ding my heart naturally started beating at a faster pace in anticipation of his words to me. Ding = faster heartbeat = feelings of falling in love...

In my last post I wrote, "I am still corresponding with C. and we have somehow managed to find our way back to each other. But I am not going to count on him. I did that before and I got hurt. That's not to say I'm going to discount him, just that, "once bitten, twice shy." I will let whatever happens with him happen. I'm not relying on him.." At the time I wasn't exactly sure why I wrote that about him as things between us had really heated up and been strengthened ten-fold. I hadn't really written a post about our burgeoning love for one another because I still felt too cautious, again, "once bitten, twice shy..." but it was definitely happening.

So when I heard that ding and knew it was C. back to spend time with me I felt joy. The subject of his email was, "Important" and I eagerly opened it up to read. 

As I read his email the beautiful day suddenly felt as if it were overcome by night, with dark, stormy clouds blotting out the sun. And as I continued to read it was like a bolt of thunderous lightning had struck me and I felt paralyzed.

This is what his email said.