To Clarify

I fear that you have misunderstood. Or that I’ve been misleading.

My life, here in Newport News, Virginia, is incredible. I speak of sadness and missing and what-am-I-doing-here moments,

but

I am healthy.

Whether nature or nurture, it is not in my composition to adjust to being far away from

Brenda or Ken or Tony

or Grace

or aunt-uncle-cousins families.

So, constant undercurrents of emotion

surge and wane

at unpredictable and strange times.

While every day is not spotless from tears,

my everyday is filled with

laughing with my husband

and playing with my big dog

and creating pages of paragraphs and catchphrases for a paycheck.

It simply does not get much better on a waking to sleeping basis.

Voids exist where friends once sat

and empty chairs facing us at restaurants still remind us of our longing

to laugh with other people in person,

to have standing plans to keep.

But this also makes us cling to husband and wife life

and this tiny family

with a fierce dependency

and deep protectiveness.

 So, please remember that I am

healthy

and a different version of happy.

Just keep calling. And writing. Because it gives me

soul sustaining strength

to stay healthy

and a different version of happy.