Cards from another lifetime

I sat on the bed with a dull ache in my head this morning. The sun was streaming in through the same wooden slats we complained about for years, the house chilly but not in an oppressive way. I looked around the room and sought the energy/drive to get up and make the small window I had for a swim. Instead my eyes found two cards we'd bought in a small craft shop in Colombo on our honeymoon.

Colourful, bright, promising tokens of adventures we'd expected ahead of us. They shook in my clammy hands - my body slowly catching up with my brain and heart. Like a burst dam I collapsed, folding in to the grief, embracing the waves of it powering through my frame. So much emotion, so aggressive and so close to the surface. Out it poured. And poured. And relented and slowly I could see. My strength returned and I found the relief after the release, a sort of odd satisfaction that I'd visited the darkness and the loneliness and come out the other side. 

I put on some music and began my day. Another memory. Another cry. Another day. Plus ça change.