Finding Forty, Day 121; Charlotte

Days slip by.  I don't mean not to write.  Sometimes I know what I want to say, I'm just afraid to even put it out here.

Other days, I feel blank, as if I have nothing.

Today is S's birthday.  I wish I could say I just let it go by, like any of the other 364 days of the year, but I didn't.

I didn't call or text.  I didn't email, although in the few birthdays we did share, our thing was to wish the other person a "happy birthday" before anyone else could, so we'd leave a well timed email in the other's inbox wishing them a happy day just at the stroke of midnight.

I'm happy to report, I slept right through midnight this morning and well past 7 a.m.

What I did do was send him a present.

I hate even admitting it and the instant I left the post office, I had a really sick feeling in my stomach.  Best I can surmise, it was a feeling of regret and embarrassment.  It was as if I pitied myself for being so weak.

The gift was a small, handmade, leather bound writing journal.   We once talked about how he would love to have one and as his birthday approached, I just thought I'd find a simple one and send it.

The journal was called The Epiphany Journal, which I found too ironic to pass up, although I know full well I should have.

He told me before that if I was waiting for him to have an epiphany, to let go of that dream, that he wasn't going to.

I never believed him.   Maybe I still don't, although with each passing day that we don't have contact, I see that he absolutely meant what he said.

So, yes, I sent the journal.   I included a card that was funny and a letter.  The letter wasn't one of my weepy, begging, please have the epiphany you said you'd never have letters.   It was a simple, straightforward, I hope this finds you well letter.

In the journal, I cut out passages from some of my favorite books and glued them on random pages.   Nothing lovey dovey.    Three of them were actually from children's books, if you can believe that.

There was a quote from the Star Wars book Attack of the Clones, an Emily Dickinson poem, a section from Bridge to Terabithia, which is very dear to me, and some quotes from Stephen King's Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

Another thing I included  was one of my most favorite of all, the last paragraph from E.B. White's Charlotte's Web.  These words have always resonated with me and for some reason, I was compelled to place them in the journal.

"Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."
— E.B. White (Charlotte's Web) 

Don't ask my why I did it.   Please.   There won't be an answer that suits any logically minded person.   Also, don't chastise me either.  It's done.  Over. 

I'm not proud, not happy, not even hopeful it will do anything other than possibly stir a bit of pity in his heart for the sad, lonely, scorned lover who can't seem to let him go.

Thing is, I know I've been holding onto a fantasy.   Believe it or not, I really can see that now.   I just have to re-frame my thoughts and hopes, re-dream my dreams.   It can be done.  People do it everyday.

If I'd been thinking straight, I'd have ordered the Epiphany Journal for me.  I'm the one who could really use it.