17 November, 2008

The Sailor's Last Name Was Truelove.

Once upon a time there was a girl who rode the trains. And one evening, on the way to the train that would take her home from school, she walked outside and felt different, like the nightmare she had been living in for the past eight years had just ended, and that if she wanted she could be better for good. And she smiled, and the boy standing outside asked her what she was so happy about. She told him that she didn't know. The next morning she woke up and felt good about it. The morning after that she did the same thing. A week and a few days later, after feeling this way for a solid week and a few days (saving occasional anxiety attacks), she was driving to the place where she spent all of her free time. She smiled to herself, in the car. She was happy to be alive for the first time in eight years. A few days later she saw a sailor on the train reading For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway. She recognized his last name as one she had seen on gravestones 3 years earlier, in a cemetary where her dead relatives were buried. She thought about how odd it was, with the book and their connection being death, and how the coincidence was almost unreal. And she felt alright about it. She didn't know what to do with herself or how to handle herself. She realized that her parameters had shifted, and that she would have to relearn a lot of things. But she looked forward to what was ahead. She looked forward to the plans she had made. She looked forward to the things that would happen that she hadn't planned.
And she was excited about all of it.

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