A Winter's Breeze.

It was a quiet afternoon. On this Winter’s day, the sun shone in a way it wanted to be remembered. But the faint breeze reminded him that the seasons had not changed. Like his thoughts as he sat on the bench at the opposite end of the park, even though he felt the embrace and love of his own self-worth, a faint feeling reminded him why he had sat at the bench.

He had just realised that he was not the only lover in his love of his life. He thanked the magic of ageing as he allowed himself to process the feelings. An older man could experience the feeling, welcome it and allow it to flow freely in his system. It was not the first time that he had experienced this feeling.

It did not punch him in the gut like the first time he experienced it. One of the reasons he cannot watch TV drama shows anymore is because he hated how the characters turned the feeling into entertainment. A feeling that raptured every fibre of his being, television treated it like removing dust from the coffee table. Something that, between a week’s episode, the heart would have healed. That’s not what he experienced.

He experienced a force stripping of his identity. Nights went where he could not sleep. Days went where he could not eat. And this was something he could share with his friends. Immature they were, as they were never going to be able to understand the gravity of the hurt he was experiencing. Or it could be because they had never experienced the pain, and they relied on the false narrative portrayed on television. Nonetheless, his friends were not ideal candidates for him to share this pain with.

No, this was a pain he experienced alone. God bless his family cause they saw his pain. His brother, like the big brother he was, did not talk much about it. Yet, looking into his little brother’s eyes, he understood what he was going through. His brother offered room to talk about the pain. But the solitude needed to heal from it. He did not put pressure on him. He did not humiliate him or question his masculinity. Like a war veteran who had seen all the horrors in war, his older brother offered support without having to mention it. Through his brother, he managed to find the strength to overcome the pain.

And each time he felt the pain, he remembered his brother. Even now, as he sat at the bench, infused with the hardened scab from the wound from years past, formed on the emotional base that his brother built for him many years before, the pain of betrayal felt like the breeze whisking around his face that warm Winter’s day.