i do not fear the dragons

On February 14, 2010, she left this world for the next. It’s 13 years later and I think I am only now really coming to terms with it.

Loss has a weight, solid and unmoving. It lodges itself tightly, unshiftingly inside me. In a place that feels to be between breath and sadness; so large, that I cannot fathom breathing around it. It demands stillness. That is all.

Attempting to move through that loss, and its ocean-like silence — a body of water so wide that its opposing shore is long beyond the horizon — is daunting. I have set out to cross it many times. Each time, it seems, I have turned back toward places more familiar.

I do not fear the dragons at the edge of the world. I did fear them, earlier on, when the pain of loss was new. Now, I fear the loss of putting my connection to rest. To cross the ocean, let go, and move on alone.

With a connection that was so deep that it felt like it defined core components of who I am, I fear that what I will wind up putting aside is not just her, but the parts of me born of that connection. Where does the memory of her end and the fabric of myself begin?

Right here, right now; I unravel.