Happiness,

Memory, No. 0218-2: A.S.

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 26"

It took me a while to get here, this place of clarity,

to accept the reality that we, perhaps, were meant only for a temporary space in time.
A blip on the radar some would call it.

Setting all guesses aside,
for a period of two months,

you and I were very much real.  We were as real as I could have ever hoped for or 

imagined.  More real than the pigments on my fingertips when I paint, or the cold on my skin

during my morning run.  More real than those before you.  I trust any lingering sadness is a singular emotion created

from the great, wild hopes of someone who finally allowed herself to feel deeply

enough for another person. 

I hurt as genuinely as I did for you

because the universe was calling out to my humanness.  

We are who we are, and I choose only to take with me that of which I am certain:

I, one humble fleeting speck of existence, was met with a brilliant, like-minded thinker.
You challenged my aloneness.
You challenged my perception of happiness. 

I experienced what many others go through their entire lifetime without knowing . . .

An incomparable connection with 
a fellow human.

There is ample reason to be sad about loss, but every reason to 
find happiness in what was gained from our time together.

OH