| scars of hope |

I used to wake up and plunge mindlessly into the day. There was no pain, because I was not unhappy with my reality, but there was little emotion, because I was blissfully stupid about everything else except getting to work by 9.03 a.m., coffee in hand, ready to start another day with a buttery smile and an over-wrought 'good morning'.

But now I wake up and there is that little scar. That little knowledge of pain. That little funny choking feeling that doesn't quite redden the eyes, but burns with the curious sensation of―loss.

'I'm happier now,' he said. I know. And I'm at peace with that.

***

Amy and I, sisters in crime, went to buy ourselves some oranges. 'You need the vitamins,' she said, a cryptic emotional mother, her own eyes dry and plastic with the old-new memories of her own pain. So we stood in line at the supermarket with our 75-cent oranges, placid and out of place in our big green basket. And we watched the people.
'Do you think they are really so happy?' I asked, looking at satisfied mothers and cheerful corporate types and the ocassional couple.
'No. We're all unhappy people. But it doesn't matter.' She replied, not unkindly, but with a sort of final wisdom that you somehow don't wish to have―because you know it comes with a price―but yet you admire someone else who has it. It's all very complicated. We're a complicated spieces.
That's the only reason why Amy and I would stand at the check-out counter on a Tuesday afternoon, two women in their prime, buying oranges to soothe an invisible disease eating up our insides.
That's the only reason why.

***

On a lighter note. I have what it feels like 3 tonne worth of lecture notes in my glamourous new bag―an Hermes rip-off, I'm not afraid to say―and I have no interest whatsover in beating the 6.30 traffic to get to class today. Rene and I are going for sushi, and work out over maki rolls how to dominate the world with words.

La vie boheme. Tres fucking bien.