In the early morning, I carefully lift the last strands of light from the Christmas tree. Watch it crack and crumble as I drag it down the narrow stairwell. We spend a short block together in the brisk Sunday air, I feel reluctant to let it go. Put it on the evergreen pile in the middle of the park and take a long walk around the neighborhood before returning home to a somber apartment. Something feels like a great emptiness inside me, a muted hollow, a silent gasp. I walk back the steps and see what's smarting: sorrow is not the flipside of joy but of love. It is love that makes us build these little altars of appreciation, wrap these moments in string lights and shimmer, it is love that encourages us to mark the moment and make the darkness a little more bearable. So sorrow is only the loss of a bit of that love.
The rest of the day itches in emptiness.
It's okay to wait for aches
to pass.
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