Hello Ireland

Do you feel better?

Hmm? I had sheepishly replied.

Do you feel better now that you've talked?

I remember being surprised, even after all those years we spent together, that Kai understood my need for communication.

I'd had a misunderstanding with some guy, (Ireland, was it?) and had been upset until he'd called.

I don't know how people just let things go or forget about them without ever being able to talk them out.

I did feel better after hearing from him. 

But up to that point I was a miserable little monkey. 

I wasn't going to communicate. 

Or rather, I was going to communicate silence. 

Silence is an incredibly powerful form of communication and I can respect it. 

The problem is it's not my style. 

It's not me. 

I. Have. To communicate. 

For my own balance and well being. 

And I realized at the end of this week that all silence was doing for me was allowing me to hold onto the hope that he would one day reach out and somehow right the wrong that would forever haunt me. 

So I halted my silence. 

But because I know me, I know which actions are necessary, I felt relief after I'd sent the text. 

It wasn't long. 

It was important to me it be brief. 

Succinct yet clear. 

I have this propensity for using an excessive amount of words and I knew he knew that and it would be much more powerful if it was as few words as possible. 

And I knew he wouldn't respond. 

There was nothing really appropriate to say.

And I fell asleep that night accepting the gruesome end, the drawn out rejection I continuously allowed myself to endure. 

And then. 

Then because I don't always know, I so often know nothing at all, because the few syllables I composed must have struck a chord in the depths of his heartstrings, or maybe simply because he woke up and I was on his mind.

My phone rang. 

My eyes opened and I knew it was him and I just let the phone ring and I listened to the ringtone play like it was some lovely bird outside my window wiling me to rise out of bed. 

And then, there it was. 

A voicemail. 

The voicemail I'd hoped for, longed for, some tactile proof that I did, in fact, hold some value to him, some meaning beyond the disdain I'd left the last time he looked at me. 

And it made me feel calm. 

Somehow more accepting. 

It changed nothing.

But it lessened the sharp sting of his wound. 

I left the house to run errands and suddenly gasped when I saw what time it was. 

Nearly one in the afternoon and I'd completely forgotten to take my medication. 

Panicked, I reached in my bag for it and then realized. 

I didn't feel out of balance. 

I was taking it hours later than normal but it didn't feel like my system was thrown out of wack.

I was finally stabilized with the dosage. 

Perhaps even a little with myself. 

I spent the day planning and preparing for Ireland. 

One week to the day and I will set out for a city I so desperately longed to see two years ago. 

To visit a man I once felt uneasy about until he called and woke me one morning. 

And I didn't know if I'd even see him there, if we'd sip an old fashioned the way we had those summer nights so very long ago. 

But it could happen. 

And even the thought of another man, when my heart was still in such disarray over one, felt good.

The idea of the future felt divine. 

Because these past months have been some of the hardest, darkest storms I've endured. 

And I was very much ready for a rainbow. 

And perhaps, even a very tiny pot of gold as well.