If I were braver, I would...

talk to him; maybe email, or leave a note saying something light like 'Where have you been? Lets meet for coffee.' Or even, 'We need to put what is past behind us. Bury it with me, please.' And see if there is something that lives today - friendship, or love, or anger that needs to be sent off on the waves, and just let go.

if i were braver i would just not be afraid to be alone right now. and do whatever it is that i am afraid to do. cry perhaps. but i wouldn't know what it is i'd cry about anyhow. perhaps because i am not alone. i fill my loneliness with all this blabber that i call writing.

i would look at myself clearly - and see the black as well as the white, the wrong, the you're-not-so-innocent, not-so-friendly, not-so-blameless side. look at it long and hard, long and hard , and then maybe.

maybe if i were brave, i'd change it. me. it in me.

maybe i'll just start by being brave.

(funny little postscript: i remember after a long fight with dad in my late teens / early twenties i said something perhaps wise-sounding, and he just hugged me and said 'be brave, my girl, be brave.')

(i think i love my Dad... more than i know.)