There is something in me that feels perilously like grief. A certain ache in the throat, the thought of goodbye, and having to pull through and go on with life as if everything will be fine. People move on, and people go, and I who have had the experience of a certain grief, the hollowness in the heart, the numbing of the brain, I am surprised again that I am feeling something like it again. Something perilously close to grief.

But it is not grief. Can it be? It is not forever and an amen. Just that days are numbered until they are gone and we are counting down until I can pretend that I can function normally again. I am scatter-witted, slow-brained, and sad. A dreadful haze of melancholy around my soul, and a smile on my face, a laugh to break the gathering storm clouds. And then it is me again. Here I am, coping in the way I know how, pulling through life in the way I know how, saddling up again for the long, weary journey ahead of me, and I am here and I am here. I have round elbows and I hug my arms to myself, and feel my weight, my bulk, the matter of me, taking up space, and the gravity that weighs so lightly on me, and I am here and I am here, and I will get through this. I will. I will. I can.