porch light.

shoutout to rae vision photography for this pretty picture.

she's magic, that one.

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i don't quite know where i read that.  perhaps pinterest?

the mêlée in my mind has taken over for the last week.  it has rendered me speechless, wordless, unable to write a coherent thought.

i woke up sunday night in a panic.  couldn't calm the ocean of grief and doubt i was drowning in.  i get brave for a moment, and then i backtrack.  i move on for a moment, and then i'm flooded with memories.

do you know what i think?  it's unfair.  it's enough to make a woman of a certain age, just a tad bit cynical.  and it's maddeningly overwhelming.

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i have fallen in love, over and over again with songs.  with movies.  with novels and essays and poetry.  it's the feelings they evoke.  the sense that i'm physically feeling the pain, or excitement, or love, that the singer, writer, character is feeling as i listen or watch or read.  but i've never felt love with a partner in that sense.

i've been in love with men, yes.  but there was always something i held back, for myself.  in both of my long-term relationships i found it hard to share my love of reading, my love of the written word, music, travel, with my partner.  i don't understand how that happens.  but, that's what i've meant when i say i was a shell of myself in each relationship.  i didn't feel free to share those things.  (oh, but if i could tell you stories about the last relationship and how hard it was to share things with a narcissist! no, no.  we're moving on.)

and it's so sad, because i passionately want to share those things with a partner.  i want to find someone with a mind as hungry and open as mine is.  but i grow tired and weary of trying.  i've thought of giving up so many times, of accepting a future as a single woman.  i've even made a back-up plan for having children.  but i won't say the words out loud.  i won't say that i'm scared.  because i know i'm stronger than that.

but sometimes, i fear the fate of my great-great-aunts, maya and lala, spinsters by their time's standards, is my destiny.

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it's the magic in my eyes saving me.  on the cusp of cynicism and yet i still stop to marvel at the stars on a clear, backroad texas night.  and i keep my porch light on, just in case.