Even as I smile..

I am watching You Got Served. It is a movie about Street Dancing. I am listening to the hip hop music in it & I can remember Kierra liking this movie. I have seen it before. I actually like the movie. But I am not watching it for the movie.. I am watching it for the memories. I am watching it for the feeling of familiarity it brings me. My life seems at times to feel so unfamiliar to me.
It is a dual edged sword to invite this nostalgia. It brings grief, it brings pain. But it brings the image of her smiling face to my mind as well. I consider it a worthy trade. I wipe the tears from my eyes even as I smile, remembering.
I have a bad habit of late. I tend to go on autopilot when talking about Kierra's death. It is done by rote. I have gotten almost too good at flipping my emotional switch off. So when I am sitting here alone in the late of night & come across a conduit to my memories & emotions, I let them flow. I embrace the joy as well as the pain, knowing they come together. Knowing I cannot have one without the other. That is the cruelest thing of all. I cannot have a joyous memory, recall a happy moment without the aftermath it brings. That too has been taken from me, right along with her. My grief is my Absinthe, my deadly nightshade, my belladonna.. it has to be tempered, controlled, held back so that I can survive, carry on with the life that I have been left with. I have built up a resistance over time, but my heart is not impervious to it. I have to realize it never will be.
I will take these moments, these memories, and I will wipe the tears from my eyes.. even as I smile.