Part I
PRESENT DAY
CHAPTER ONE
As I gazed out of the windows, the rain dropping like shards on the glass, it matched my mood perfectly. The winter had been mild actually, no snow and one- or two-night frosts but the garden looks dead, just dark branches against the grey skies. Yes, that described me perfectly, a drab winter branch, where you begin to wonder, is it alive or dead?
I often found myself crying for really no reason, it was just the feeling of complete and utter sadness, and most of all, not having any idea why something which had seemed so perfect had just stopped. No explanations, no reasons, just died, missing without a trace!
For months I had been feeling that it was like ‘peaches with cream’. You know those satin silky ripe peaches, with that, oh so perfect skin, which reveal that golden sweetness within, in a cut glass crystal bowl with fresh, thick dairy cream … and the taste as one slips into your mouth and releases all the succulent juices. It’s heaven!
Now, as I look out of my window, through the rain, which almost feels as if its literally piercing my heart, forming cold lumps of ice within, all the branches are bare, not a leaf in sight. The gnarled twisting branches of the roses, which look almost dead to me, will soon be filled with sprouting leaves and festoons of blooms in the summer. Dead twigs with lethal thorns, beauty and pain together. Huge beautiful flowers but when picked the thorns pierce your fingers painfully. ‘Roses with thorns.’
Most of the morning has already gone, before I actually get going. I have got into the habit of getting out of bed, pottering around, having breakfast and sometimes it’s lunch time before I have even got showered and dressed. But why make such haste, it is if the life force has been sucked out of me sometimes. I don’t want to go into a depression, but I feel melancholy all the time. A song on the radio can bring back memories, a film on the television, words in a book, words in my book, all remind me of times that were so incredibly happy and filled with such optimism.
I think I actually would feel so much better if I could understand why? But I don’t and to be honest do I really want to keep asking myself the same questions over and over again? I really just want to move on, but my limbs feel stiff as if to say, you cannot move until you deal with it.
I know.
I have to.
Do I want to? Yes, I do really but it is just so hard.
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