Write My Name Across the Sky

by Barbara O'Neal

It’s a word as fraught as any I know, but this spot is one of my favorites in the world. Here, I can let the space ground me, hold me, give me some time to figure out what’s next in my mess of a life.

A thousand conversations I’ve had hang invisibly in the air around us.

Over and over, he’s disappointed her. Left her, chased after some woman or dream interview or whatever was in his selfish head, never seeing the little girl who adored him, who needed him.

It would be one thing if it were a lover, but you can’t just get another dad, can you?

Patterns and routines create sanity where nothing else can.

The great tragedy of aging is not the loss of the supple body but the illusions we are forced to leave behind, one after the other, like a string of pearls from a necklace. That all will be well, that dreams can come true, that we can always do what we wish, that sacrifice and sorrow are not inevitable.

My gift has always been an ability to be happy. It sounds small until you live in the world for a while.

It pierces me somehow, and I nudge the emotion to see if I can discover why.

It’s tricky, with an addict.

life doesn’t care if you like something. It gives you choices. It’s up to you to decide which things are right for you.

Why do people put up with so much, or rather, why do they settle for so little?

I hang up, trying not to think about him looking at the phone and my name and choosing to let it go to voice mail. Maybe he’s just in the middle of a meeting or something.

There is more than one way to love a man the whole of your life.