The Paisley Room
I remember, one night, when I hadn't been able to sleep in Colorado. I was exhausted, and I knew I had work the next day, but I was gripped by something - as I get gripped, sometimes. But it was after curfew, and all was silent, so I fumbled for a pen and paper and all I found was my CBOM notebook. So I took it and I hid in the bathroom, sitting in a closed up stall on a toilet seat, and wrote unsurprising words. I ran out of spare paper, this afternoon, so I had to resort to my notebook for the necessary pages. Before I knew what I was doing I was flipping through it.
Spring is supposed to be a time for new things, but I have that autumn poem stuck in my heart...
I lay in my bed, thinking, what should I do? It's been five months, and yet, I...
But then there are the ones that seem hopeful for recover:
You know, tonight, I looked at the mirror and didn't recognize myself because I had grown so happy. So a little further, a little further, and I'm going to meet that person. That person most important to me.
and then, there are the final, crowning glories; not only hope, but hope abundant. To Lorn, I wrote a benediction, spoken with such confidence:
Take these things. GO. You will not be disappointed. I will be redeemed.
And again, again, on the final page:
For a heart broken once has many paths: to overcome, to wallow (stagnant), to over-correct, to even be ...redeemed.
How odd, now, looking back at my own words, my own pictures, my hopelessness, that even then, there was something in my spine that refused to be broken. Even then -- when truly, I had nothing to look forward to at all -- there remained a strain of hope, so resilient, so persistent, that I could not even keep it quelled in the paisley room inside my chest.
It's evening now, in the present and future hope. My phone, in my lap, is buzzing, and the rain patters against the window pane while the heater rolls hot air over me.
This is what it feels to be redeemed.