I walked home this morning at eight, and the snowflakes were falling heavy and full. High school kids threw snowballs at each other, and gabby women in giant fluffly coats, looking like near-extinct ice age creatures, gossiped into their offices. The homeless people were stirring from the nooks and crannies they'd hid themselves in. The sky was as blue as the bluest crayon, but the wind was biting.
I don't know what all of this means. All that has happened, I mean. All the things that have occurred, have been said, and felt. But I know that there's a new peace here, right between my ribs. Time will roll along, and things will happen - to me, next to me, all around me. And that's okay.
Where before I would feel myself swept along in a tide of things, I started, just last night, to feel like the eye of the storm. To feel like, maybe I didn't know all about myself. But I knew enough. And more would be revealed to me as I went along. I felt like, for once, there's no rush here. Of all the things in the world that rush you, self-discovery needn't be an uncontrollable force. Self-discovery is a process of letting things happen, of feeling fully but without recklessness, of being selfish when you need to be selfish, but realizing that you are the least important thing.
The man I liked the most was carrying a guitar around his neck - the guitar had no strings. But he held onto that guitar with more strength than anything. He was cold, and he had just emerged from a storefront where a garbage bag had served as a pillow. He shuffled along, his toes obviously in pain. I gave him a toonie and felt kinda bad about it. Like who was I to give this guy a toonie? He had this guitar. I should've bought him strings. I should have asked him to sing me a song. But that's the thing, right? We are taught in so many ways all the people who have nothing to offer us. We are taught in so many ways how to offer help. And all of these ways are wrong.
So many people spouting so many truths. No wonder love is hard, when all love asks is honesty. When all love asks is for a song to sing, and maybe some strings to play it with.
I am the eye of the storm. I can go through the motions, but I can be myself. I can be honest when I need to be honest, and guarded when I need to be guarded. But mostly, I can let things happen. I can cease the barrage of planning and worrying. I can just live.

Or at least, that's the idea.