"There are very few human beings who receive the truth,
complete and staggering, by instant illumination.
Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment,
on a small scale, by successive developments,
cellularly, like a laborious mosaic." - Anaïs Nin

4 years. 4 years I have carried his ghost around with me. 4 years he has invaded my head, my heart, my life, reaching around every corner and lingering in shadows. Even during periods when I felt his hold over me losing its power I could still feel him weighing heavily on the part of me that usually remains hidden and guarded. My inability to release the memories have infiltrated my relationship with my partner and in some ways even my relationship with my daughter. Because as it's affected my relationship with myself on so many levels it has bled over into other areas. Not only have I carried this around with me but, by association, Mr. Egg has as well. He has seen me struggle and was more supportive than most yet imagine how devastating it must be to witness the love of your life trying to move past the love and passion she had for her previous lover. I never fully got that. I was so immersed in my own pain and grieving that I never fully understood what that was doing to him. To us. Nor did I realize how much of this was suppressing my love for him or, more specifically, my ability to allow myself to feel it.

Sometimes epiphanies occur spontaneously. They come seemingly out of nowhere to rock your world into a new direction. But sometimes they are proceeded by years of searching...questioning...actively seeking the truth. I have wrestled with those several months I spent living with D in Manhattan. I have turned every word, glance and action inside out. Flipped them upside down. Over and over and over again. Answers came slowly. My ability to see the truth came even more slowly. Piecing it all together, little by little, I finally arrived at the end. It was sudden on the one hand, releasing something that has held parts of myself hostage for so long. Something that I thought I would never, could never, move beyond. But the more I look at it from a distance I see how this was certainly a long time coming.

In the late hours of yesterday evening I arrived at the end of a trail that ended long ago. I see how I allowed myself to trip through that forest long after I lost my way. I continued to wander deeper and deeper in. But in that wandering I learned a lot about myself. The way I love. The way I hide from love. The walls I erect and smash into time and again. And, not to take away from the heartbreak I experienced, but maybe a large part of me clung onto this "lost love" for so long as a way to avoid opening to my new love. My true love. The love that exists with the man I share my bed with every night and wake to every morning and fight with and talk with and stress with and laugh with and cry with. The father of my child who has seen me through my worst moments as well as some of my best.

And when I woke this morning, and sleepily shuffled down the hall towards the light of the bathroom I heard Mr. Egg brushing his teeth and knew instantly that Monkey was on her stool trying to stick her hand under the faucet as she giggled with glee, I felt lighter. And joyous. And as I stood in the dark hallway gazing into the bathroom at my family I felt tears in my eyes. It was almost as if I was seeing them for the first time and the love in my heart was overwhelming.

I will not say that I will never again feel a twinge when I think of D. Or that the heartbreak I experienced wasn't strong and real and life-altering. But the memories no longer reside with such fullness. They are filed away with the many other lessons I have had in this life which have left me a bit more battered and bruised. They exist side by side now, the various shapes fitting together to form the bigger picture. No more and no less.