"Are we friends?"

“Are we friends?”

The words hung suspended, silent like the icicle hangs in frozen winter. I counted the seconds and listened to the breathing on the other end.

“That’s a good question” was the reply said with a sigh.

For something so simple to be asked, the answer was a complex as a rubik’s cube.

I am not someone who likes to have grudges, loose ends, or unresolved matters in any situation. It may take me some time to get to a point of closure or forgiveness, but I will get there someday.

I think today was the first day that closure had been reached with respect to my ex husband, ex marriage, ex life. It’s been a long time coming, and the road has been filled with nasty emotional potholes that drain the life right out of you the same as they do to the air of the tire that they just helped flatten.

A conversation was had, slowly, tentatively even. The baby steps were hard, and in the end may show no visible fruits of labor so to speak, but even as those small steps were taken… closure was had.

When I was married I was very young, just a mere 22; a naïve 22. Through the course of time, the young and the blind reaching out for a relationship both missed the mark. Things were done, words were said and a stain of hurt was left on my heart.

It’s been three years since the life that I knew of in marriage ended. I sort of liken the time spent in between that time and the time of “now” to purgatory; that place which helps to cleanse the soul. It's been a hard process and there have been some stops and starts, steps forward and many many steps back. But I've made it.

I don’t know what type of friendship with me, if any, is on the horizon for the man I once said forever to. But the screaming demons of hurt that have for so long shouted in my ear, or as of late whispered, reminding me that they were there… are silent.

It’s a peace I welcome with open arms.

Muse