Am I What?

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

~ Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Are you happy?” 

I automatically gave my pat answer, the one that makes everyone else feel better and gets me off the hook:  Off the hook of having to explain to people why I haven’t recovered from All That within their timeframe.  Those explanations wear me out the most.

I also didn’t want to explain how the entirety of my being is totally and constantly focused on only one thing:  Not succumbing to despair.  Anything else I manage to accomplish is a sheer accident. 

Obviously, my heart is programmed to pursue that which will reject and/or mistreat it.  So, until it gets re-programmed, it’s in a box in a drawer in I-don’t-remember-which-cabinet in the basement. 

So I told a lie.  To someone who was actually interested in the actual truth.

On the one hand, “happy” is thoroughly out of the realm of any possibility in any of my universes.

Content?  Yes.

Positive?  Yes.

Grateful?  Yes.

Happy?  What?

On the other hand…why haven’t I considered “happy”?

As most of you know, I am stuck in that place between “made it” and “move forward.”  Incredulous that I made it; totally unclear how to move forward.  Move forward into what?  What was no longer is and, more importantly, I don’t want to reconstruct it.  I want something else, something different.  But what? 

How do I create something when I have no idea what to create?  Something different, yes.  But what, exactly?

I start with your expression when you first saw me after all of that time, all of that trauma, and all of that stink:  You looked at me like I am a flower.

And so I will bloom.