Then I turned off the lamp.
I knew someone might call for me before morning.
I knew breakfast, dishes, laundry, noise, money, schedules, and bedtime would begin again.
But the old shame was gone.
I no longer needed to insult my former life in order to justify my present one.
I could love what I had built and still mourn what building it had cost.
I could be grateful and tired.
I could be needed and sometimes wish, fiercely, to be needed by no one for a few hours.
I could remember the empty apartment without calling it empty in the way people had taught me to.
Because now, finally, I knew what had filled it.
Peace.
