Valleys (Acute)

... I have a smile stretched from ear to ear to see you walking down the road; we meet at the lights, I stare for a while; the world around us disappears ...

Today's post is a bit on the melancholy side. It's a post for all of us at one moment ... or another. It's a post for people who are hurting and struggling, yet must somehow deal with their issues at the same time they continue living. From my own window today I can view:

• A man whose mother died after a long illness where there was hope for her recovery just a few weeks ago.
  
• A man whose wife decided after many years of marriage that she wants to move on alone.
  
• A woman who unexpectedly got pregnant and let that joy permeate her life before she lost the baby after she tripped and fell in her yard.
  
• A patriarch, who for so long has taken care of everyone and been the family rock, suffered a debilitating stroke just a few years into his retirement.
  

All of us burn with the deep, unrelenting hurt associated with lost relationships. Unlucky, unfair, unexpected. You just want to scream to the heavens. Why me? Why them? Why? Yet so often the echoes of silence are deafening. Time and struggle are normally the only cures you hear pitched from the medicine man's wagon. Of course, those fancy bottles are brimming only with snake oil. Distance yourself from that siren's song. There is no real cure, only muting of the lowest lows. New and old activities to fill our mind to distract us from what we really wanted. Will there ever again be peace, equilibrium, self-confidence, and joy? Judging by today's shadows, the answer seems obvious. Yet I implore you to give it time. Deal with your situation with every resource at your disposal. Look up and out from time to time instead of always down and in. Perhaps you may then start to find your smile.

... oh and every time I'm close to you there's too much I
can't say; and you just walk away; and I forgot to tell you I love you.

(Part 1 of 2)