Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Interludes

It was the fifth false spring that broke her. The fifth storm that blew in from the west leaving her trudging through snow. Again. It was the end of April for fuck sakes. All she wanted was a morning warm enough to sit on the balcony and have a coffee and contemplate life and where she might go from here. Life and weather were not cooperating. She knew enough of these parts not to expect that, but still.  

The thing was, it had been a long winter. The longest. A kind of grim stumbling march through the long nights wondering if she was even heading in the right direction. Feeling like she probably wasn’t, but still keeping on because that was what she did. And what was the alternative anyway? Well, she spent a lot of time thinking about the alternatives only to end up convincing herself they weren’t any better than what she already had. He didn’t make her happy, if she was forced to admit, but he was decent and good and who was she to complain. No one was promised happiness, exactly. You made the best of the situation and it wasn’t a bad one. She’d been in worse for sure. 

When he’d said he was leaving, she told herself she shouldn’t be surprised. What had she been thinking about these last months after all? It had somehow taken her completely unawares. A suckerpunch to the jaw and she looked at everything through glassy eyes still. The snow returning every week didn’t help. Hard to move on when the world seemed to be spinning its wheels.  

Oh everyone told her it was for the best. It was an opportunity. She would be okay, better even when all the dust had settled. Sometimes she believed them. This was an interlude, a pause where she could gather herself, reassess and determine what mattered to her. Be lost for a little while before finding her way. But most days when she woke up to clouds and cold and a blanket of white on the streets below, it felt like she was just lost and there would be no finding her way out. That maybe the interlude had been her time with him and now things were turning back to normal where the snow never stopped and the grass never turned green.