2023-05-01: may 1 already

may 1 coming as something of a surprise, then. this is supposed to be pre-summer, the grass should be green (nowhere close), &c; instead in the mornings where i take the dogs we pass the marsh birds swaying in the dry tall grass, the hiss of susurrus like a pleasant form of tinnitus.

the year has been quiet. the year has gone well. i haven't seen my therapist in months. i need to book my next appointment. summer looms and with it, my desire to talk to my family about what really went down almost three decades ago. easy to think that because i've talked about it a handful of times, in a handful of ways, to a handful of people, that the work is done. the work isn't done. i'm trying to be more open, to turn to the people i should've turned to in the first place, the ones who have always loved me.

as an adult, home's always felt a bit provisional. my parents a province away, and then several; my family scattered across the country, finally concentrating thousands of kilometres away. part of growing up is establishing the strength of the life you choose to make, and i've done that: married my great love, moved to a city new to the both of us; bought a house, then built another. raised three puppies. the first gone now two years, the other two, one young and one old, asleep right now on the couch.

and yet home has always felt as much where my family is. i still haven't booked a trip out to see them, or needled my parents about coming here. i need to do that. at the back of my mind is the knowledge of how much i need to tell them. not because it'll heal me, because it won't — at this point i've accepted that those events will never leave me — but because i think it'll provide some much-needed context into just what had happened. the miracle of why i'm still here.

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