I do this for me
A friend was on her way over to the LaLa right before I left for D.C., she said she had been listening to a woman who ran a marathon and when asked by everyone who she was going to sponsor or run for, she said she put on the back of her jersey, “I am doing this for me.”
And so when I was in D.C. lying in bed, I received an email from a friend admonishing me to take care of Tin during this transition period. As if, I thought, Tin wasn’t the most important part of any of my decisions.
I left on a Saturday morning and returned on a Tuesday evening and the emotional ribbons that flapped in the icy wind while I was gone begged for me to pick up the phone and call someone who could help me make it just a little bit longer, help steady me on this wavering bridge, help guide me into the light. But my mom is dead, so I couldn’t make that call. I said to myself as I rode a wave of depression that this too shall pass. I told myself as I became anxious that nicotine withdrawal was certainly complicit. I was having a hard time envisioning what my life looks like right now and that’s because the canvas has been painted over to get ready for the new picture. Of what?, fear asked me. “Will this time be different?” smart mouth cynicism lashed out. “Yay, I’m free to move forward,” the optimist said.
I snuggled myself and said it doesn’t matter what, when, where or who, what matters is you. Me, myself and I. This time is for me.
Love After Love
Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.