My beloved is gone for a few days. We have prepared for the separation over a week or so, but it is still hard to take. As she teased me before she left, now I am free to sleep as much as I wish. As well as to read and write as much as my heart desires while I am up and about. But these freedoms strike me as trite by comparison with a whole bunch of other freedoms. The freedom to look at her. The freedom to listen to her. The freedom to smell her. The freedom to touch her. Enough, though. If I keep listing all the freedoms lost, albeit for a few days only, I will end up by crying. The best I can do under the circumstances is to focus on one freedom that cannot be taken from me no matter what: the freedom to love her to bits.