the lovely bones
These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections - sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent - that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life.
~Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
I watched The Lovely Bones with my mom today. I wrote my outline for my research paper and tried not to cry, for many reasons.
Because I'm an uncle. Because I'm happy. Because there are so many people who love me and there are so many people I love and I am so lucky for my life.
I cried for my life, most of all.
You know what The Lovely Bones is about. I don't have to tell you. I haven't read the book yet, but I'll have to read it for English class next year.
I want to read it now. I want to read it from cover to cover as quickly as I can, and then I will read it again. I want to run to a bookstore tonight before it closes and buy the last copy on the shelves, hold it under my coat as I take it home.
I couldn't stop crying, in the end. My mom was sitting next to me and I didn't want her to see me cry but, really, I have been crying all day.
I was rocking the baby back and forth this morning in his carrier, 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3. I kept time in my mind and watched him sleep and my mom was doing the dishes and I cried.
But I'm okay with crying. When it's over, when I have no more tears left, I always feel so much better.
I feel reborn.
I was doing yoga on my bedroom floor a few minutes ago, listening to Iron & Wine as I went through the sun salutations, and I could hear my nephew crying in the living room. He isn't real to me. I don't know if he ever will be.
I lied on my back on the mat and breathed, in and out and in and out. I love the feeling, the emptiness, in my stomach. I am full of love and happiness and, to feel my body sinking towards the ground...I am grounded, in the best possible way.
I will tell my dad when the time is right. I will tell my mom when the time is right.
I am accepting myself and they have to accept me and tomorrow is Monday and I am back to school.
Tomorrow is new, and I am reborn.