So this just happened – my 9-year old hands me an old, half-ripped notebook, with folded computer paper sticking out (the old kind with the perforation on the sides – remember those?)

Turns out it’s my old diary, and I’m like 😳.

The goods are exchanged between his hand and mine, and I find myself strangely apprehensive of what lies within.

He asks me what the sheets of paper hold and I answer that I don’t know.

So I unfold them – less for him, because he’s already moved on to something else by now, and more for me. As their contents emerge – released into present time – I find myself staring at.. well, myself; just me from a time way back.. a very different me.

The details of those sheets aren’t relevant here – not in their entirety. But the gist is this: they’re communication between an old college boyfriend and me, when things had reached their end.

What’s important isn’t so much the words, or specific content: it’s what they stand for – that endings are never easy. But sometimes, we need them stated out loud, in order to embrace closure, and move ahead.