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Three years now I’ve taken you on a journey. My life. And I thank you, my reader, for allowing me to selfishly take you with me – and you talking to me: love or hate, we’ve always found each other.
Thank you for allowing me a platform and sharing it with me: critically, but always with love. You made me. Without you, I wouldn’t have had exactly this. Without you, I wouldn’t have known my tinfoil hat is not quite such a snug fit on your head while we greet the “little green men” (I never mentioned, just by the way).
I wouldn’t have known you hated my Advocate’s brown shoes (again, sorry, Alta); my bloody toe is your worry too, my dogs are your love – God knows why, Covid taught me my room suddenly smells of wet dogs.
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Me overbearingly losing my battle against the fourth glass of red wine, or me being my facetious self, was, always, yet again, okay: “What is Carine smoking, but…” So I thank you for your love. I’ll miss it.
But you know how life changes, right? Allow me to, for the last time – stop rolling your eyes – tell you about unconditional love.
It is that little girl with the plump knees running, implicitly believing her dad loves her and won’t hit her with the reed he smacks next to her while slowly walking behind to her, knowing she ate the green peaches.
It’s that little girl implicitly loving him, even when he did her the disservice of telling a 12-year-old her “you can’t sit on my knee anymore” long before #MeToo.
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I flutter my eyelids around the issue, knowing you know the depth of my hurt – and that of the women around me. We’ve talked rape, homelessness, lightness of being, drugs – all issues in my life I had to deal with – and necessarily you. I love it. It’s life.
Allow the little girl her way. It’s that same girl implicitly believing nearly 65 years later, love still exists. Even after death, I hope. Red wine or not, life is short. You blink and we’re gone; anger and all. So, like doubting Thomas centuries ago, I tell you again: just love. Truly. Let go. Like I do of this column today. Much as I’ll miss it.
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