Life Has Returned

"A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness 

and sings to cheer its own solitude 

with sweet sounds."

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I sit in darkness searching for one small orb of energy to rekindle my exhausted body.  My skin and bones, my heart and spirit are painfully tired.  Both physically and emotionally, I am dissolved by the darkness.

I place so much anticipation, like a child, in a forth coming family event, it is inevitable that I will be disappointed.  The contained excitement bursts upon my children who are expanding with their own lives and anticipations. The focus has shifted and it abruptly becomes obvious to me.

I fulfilled my contracts as best as I could and the strings are taut ready to snap.  It is so very hard to let go, to release the ones who have taught me how to love and embrace.  The resulting emptiness, in spite of the growth of these loved ones, urges me to turn.  Life has returned itself to me.  To begin again, creating and filling the life once streamlined for parenthood when I was young, so long ago.