On balance.

Things continue go up and down.  I laugh, I cry, I sit quietly.  I think about Mila, but I also think about what to make for dinner, my friends’ love lives, work, and what shoes to buy.  Sometimes I talk about Mila at length and am completely composed; other times I talk and I realize, too late, that my own words are bringing on tears.  The balance of happy and sad fluctuates; but for the first time there are moments when I am, on balance, cheerful.

Mila is always, always on my mind, but this week the sadness only bubbled up to the surface with very specific triggers.  Coming across D’s race shirt from last December while folding the laundry.  Seeing Mila’s tiny, unworn Converses in the back of the closet.  Talking about her with someone new.  Reading through Dr. R’s angry letter to my insurance company (as validating as that also felt).

But other times, I see beauty in the world, I think of her, and rather than feeling broken, I smile.  Wednesday, it rained briefly in San Francisco.  After the rain stopped, the sun lit up the thinning cloud cover and bathed the city in a post-rain glow.  The air smelled clean.  I thought of her, and I smiled.  Friday, I sat on patios drinking wine with friends in the sunshine, flowers spilled out onto the sidewalks, and dogwalkers and their packs of dogs roamed the trails.  I thought of her, and I smiled.  Today, I stood in the sun at the very end of the city, at the end of the world.  The wind blew and I watched the sailboats in the bay beneath the Golden Gate.  I thought of her, and I smiled.