By Laura Shipley, email Lshipley@chi.osu.edu
Date: 9 December 1997

Something Simple, Something Beautiful

Something simple, something beautiful, is all I ever wanted to find in love. But there is cruelty in truth and treachery in beauty, sometimes. Often the most valuable lessons life provides us are those that we never wanted to learn. Once I found what I was seeking and, for a timeless moment, I was completely happy. Simply happy and, simply beautiful. I had never felt so beautiful before, and have not since. No, not an infatuation, not a dream. It was as real as the breath in me, and as vital. Never did I have the sense about me to fear. No warning voices in my head, no jealousy, no doubt ever crept into the light of the love I knew then. No shadows. And I believed in it...completely.

I watched, helplessly, as he pulled away from our last kiss and turned his eyes away from me. I thought my biological heart, the desperate tireless organ in my chest, actually split in two in that timeless moment. The last moment I would gather into my box of treasures. The silence that followed was deafening. Silence in the room, silence in his shadow, silent tears streaming down my hot face. This silence was very different from that I had known before. There was no peace in this silence - only empty. And emptiness is the heaviest burden a heart will ever bear. But within the emptiness, deep inside, there is room for hope.

The scent of warmth comforted my fitfulness as I cried on my mother's shoulder, lamenting "why, why, why!?" and "never again!" She said these words to me then: "Sweetheart, you will be all right." I should have been angry, and at first I thought I might be. How could she belittle all that I had lost? How could she not understand my grief? But no anger rose to my heart. The simplicity of her words confused and bewildered me. What surprised me the most was that I believed her. I knew it would be a long time before the pain would leave me, but I knew it would leave.

Time and tears flowed slowly. Pain and grief would not leave me. I grew tired and weak and wanted very much to let go of the thing that was hurting me, but could not. I could not bury my box of treasures, my happiest memories. Then one day, when I was feeling stronger and more like myself, I opened my box of treasures and looked at them with dry eyes. Carefully, slowly, I separated the jewels from the cinders. The trick in letting go, I learned, is to let go of the right things.

So here my story does not end...it is only beginning.

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