Rainbow

So, it looks likely that A will be allowed to go home on Monday, and the next chapter will begin. I am weary, devoid of thought, relieved, unable to be entirely relieved. The intensity of the last two months and more has exhausted my capacity for anxiety, for now at least. I am happy for him that he can return to his beloved flat, will have privacy, autonomy, choice restored to him. His recovery is not complete, but considerable, and being out of that disturbing environment will, I hope, allow another phase of healing to begin.

An old friend has tracked me down via the internet. It's the second time this has happened to me. Last time it was a university friend, and we had a rather intense flurry of correspondence some years ago, which culminated in a couple of meetings, then gradually faded away. This time it's a sixth form friend with whom I lost touch when we all went off to university, and maybe more significantly when I moved with my mother to London around the same time. I am enjoying a rather frequent exchange of bits of our life-stories, memories and updates about mutual friends. I don't expect to sustain it, but it's rather compelling for now, and has steeped me in memories of that time, and in some strange sense of connection, of the simple continuation of all our lives in parallel. We'll all be fifty in the next year or so, along with my dear old earlier school friends. A time to ponder the passing of time, the coming and going of friendship, the ordinariness and specialness of all our lives. I find I feel validated, made more real in some odd way by this exchange.

A lovely rainbow appears as I write, the third or fourth we've seen this week - I go to the door and stand with my face upturned to the rain and the sunlight. A perfect arc, and the hint of another above it. Raindrops on my glasses now as I write.