Taking It Slowly

It takes a while.  You have been away, you come back. You imagined it would all be easy once you were back home.  But it's not. It's strange, and hard.  Despite everything, some bit of you misses what you have just left behind.

Julie leaves hospital.  We do our best to rally round, but it's hard.  Her evenings alone feel long and empty.  She wanted her own front door for so long, but now her refuge feels a bit like a prison.

It takes a while, I say.  It always takes a while to adjust.  You have to find little things to latch onto, tiny bursts of pleasure.  It's like trying to light a fire: lots of false starts, lots of wasted matches, until you finally get it to settle down, before the logs finally catch and then begin to glow with a constant light.