Even Losing You, I Shan't Have Lied

This last year was better by far. The last three were a doozy - in a way that kicked in all my teeth, dropped out my life, turned upside down, and literally changed ME from ME.

As I was packing for Atlanta I realized it's not MY city anymore. It's not MY home. In much the way that living here hasn't felt like HOME because I'm still healing and re-finding pieces of myself.

Two more friends just got promotions. Several more defended. And I realized I feel this way everytime someone has a baby, everytime someone celebrates another birthday of their children, everytime they go on an anniversary trip. Everytime I see a man watching his wife like she's the most beautiful thing on the planet - I feel HOPE for humanity and simultaneously like a failure for missing out on it. I am not part of this. I am in this liminal phase - disconnected, cast aside, unremembered, unMelissa'd. I made unwise choices. Instead of investing in 100% ME ME ME I invested in US US US - AND THOSE CARDS I GAMBLED ON DID NOT WIN. Or some might say- they won very well because I'm getting to deal back in in a whole new world, a new name, a new location. It might seem refreshing for some, but it hurts me deeply.

Meanwhile - the entire story of humanity is one of set backs and catching up, storms, crashing, insecurity, vulnerability, migration, procreating, learning who we are, and re-learning it again and again.

It isn't just survival but re-telling it and re-living it and re-expressing it and re-doing it till we get it right and better and make a tradition to celebrate it, sing about it, and hang it in our memories.

A beautiful friend who is a writer, told me, "we write our way back to ourselves." And I love that. In that way- I say we tell our story back to ourselves. And this is my story. I am preparing to visit a city, like a visitor, where once I loved and lived.

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.