Sylvanna Devlin

No matter how long I look at a picture, I don’t recognize myself.

If we take out the pink of youth and good lighting. Here it is, yet again. My favorite picture of me.

I’m a good 90 lbs heavier- some of it muscle. But the closest I recently came was this.

I want to diet. I know how. Cut the sugar and my body does it for me. And after the holidays I am slowly cutting back to a slow trickle of starbursts.

I want my thinner, fitter self. But part of me doesn’t care anymore. My apathy towards myself getting frustrating.

I want my woods. The ones near I lived. The ones that once got so coated in fog it was like stepping into another realm.

The only other person I saw on the trail agreed it was a beautiful day.

Emerging from the mist with a smile on his face.

I miss damp weather walks, and slight muddy ground. I miss putting all tracking equipment in the car and disappearing into the captured wild for an hour and a half.

I miss Ian and Cybelle, though I’m so grateful for Tabitha and I swear – born 30 days after Cybelle’s death, Tabitha is the same spirit.

I miss working from the comfort of white bamboo sheets. And the kind of heavy duty magic I swore kept us going.

I miss cups of tea and my climbing rose. Outside being unchallenging. The laundry a short walk to the wash room.

I miss, most of all, recognizing my life as mine.

There’s something so strange about what happened to me. I was supposed to have a writing career. It was taking off.

Circumstances were not in the stars I suppose. And love has been dangled like a carrot for enduring agony of the soul.

I want the quiet to last.

I want to never go experience harassment, bullying and gaslighting again.

I want to feel like my life makes sense.

That last part being hard.

I miss feeling like I am me.

Who am I again?

I guess I’m her.