So here I am in my room at Mom and Chuck's house. As I sit here typing, I look over at my bed, and it seems unfamiliar. Thinking to Sophie's bed, it feels like home. I spend so many nights there that I feel, quite oppositely, that I am merely a visitor in my own bedroom. I will sleep here tonight, as I have done since that post written last November about the first night spent as a truly single man:

The water was shut off yesterday, so after taking Caro and her man Scott to the airport to pick up their rental car, they went down to Viv's to shower and spend the night. I headed home. My real home. Mom's. I asked (for manners' sake) if I could stay there that night, and said I had a few errands to run. So with what little of my paycheck was left, I went out. Driving away, I kept repeating in my head the line from Delerium's song Firefly:

"There's a requiem, a new congregation. And it's telling me go forward and walk under a brighter sky, every nerve glowing like a firefly."

One full tank of gas later, I headed over to Dollar General. Uber-redneck in there, but their generic products are so damn cheap. Picked up some bathroom cleaning and laundry supplies. Mom said I could use hers, but I want to impose as little as possible. Headed over to Meijer for the pack of pictures (that sunset I mentioned a week or so ago), and I'm super pleased with the quality of their processing, as well as Fuji 100 speed. God, you guys have to see these. I'll do what I can, the computer gets moved after work and I'll be back online late this evening. I pick up some mouthwash and toothpaste.

Leaving, I realize I don't have a hairbrush or trashcan, so I head over to Wal-Mart. I've got pictures there, forgot to pick them up, so I meander about trying to think of things I need. I pick out a big tacky clear neon green hairbrush and a wastebasket that's on clearance for $2. After perusing injet photo cartridge and picture frame prices, I get a can of chunky soup for dinner.

All along, I notice how much brighter and saturated the colors in the stores are. The smells are so intense, and sounds echo in my ears like never before. I see all the other shoppers, every last one of them busily and hurriedly going about their tasks, oblivious to the sheer beauty and joy of these stores. I pity them for missing it.

At home, I take a shower and inflate mom's camping air mattress in my room. I slide open the casement window and look out to Michelle and Daniel's back yard behind the house across the street. I'll have to hang out with them soon.

Laying down in the dark, I reacquaint myself with sights unseen for ages... the way the street light casts a glare in the back corner by the closet, the way passing cars' headlights slide from wall to wall before disappearing. I miss the guitar chords and Doors posters that were taken down ages ago, but I would otherwise be looking up at. I forgot how the baseboard heater smells like it's burning, and its familiar tink tink tink tink sound. I take a deep breath and close my eyes with my hands behind my head. My right elbow seeks out the feel of the edge of the mattress.

I realize... I've laid down on "my side" of the bed. It just feels right. With a grin, I fall asleep.

And here I am, a man no longer single, yet still recalling Delerium's song lyrics. As I sit and think of Sophie in her bedroom a little under an hour's drive away, maybe asleep or maybe reading a book by the one single desk lamp clamped to her headboard, I hear their line:

"...go forward and walk under a brighter sky! Every nerve glowing like a firefly."

Before, it was the incomprehensible sense of hope, and freedom and from a repressive marriage that set my soul aglow.

Now, it's the God-blessed freedom from loneliness. Also, it's a totally unfamiliar kind of Hope, the likes of which I've never felt before. It's Sophie.