I kind of like doing the dishes.  I like the warm water, furry layers of suds and the contrast between their crisp voices as they pop, and the slurp of the water in the dish tub.  I like to see the tools restored and ready, my hands saying thank you for a job nicely done as the cutlery clatters back into its trays, and the pottery slides confidently into its stack.  Of course, if I had a dishwasher, I’d use it.  But I don’t anymore – so I may as well enjoy myself.

I can’t describe what I’ve been through – physically and emotionally – to satisfy a demand that upended my life for someone else’s convenience. Yet, the hardest part was this weekend, in my new home.  Because somehow I thought that a place of my own might be a start – just a sliver of possible light – for me and you.  And I guess it was good that I thought that because the mirage of heartbreakingly real hope tempered my despair and fear – and kept the fuel lines open so I could get where I needed to go, burning something deeper and more meaningful than anger.  Something meaningful to my very core.

But.  Not.

These rooms are a paradise of light and air and nothing I have to keep for anyone else if I don’t want to.  I have no idea who I will find here – but her voice will be my own.