If I dissolved myself in you...
Would I be wasting my time...
This life is the only one I have...
Can you blame for protecting it...
From the flames that might just set me free?
If the open handed leap into the void...
Only nets me a crash landing at the bottom...
Then isn't it better to stay up here on the cliff...
Singing to the hunger...
Again and again...
Crying for the songs that never see the light of day...
I catch glimpses of you in the corner of my eye...
In the corner of the room...
Laughing from the pages of a forgotten website, a forgotten book,
singing a forgotten song...
I am a mean girl... and I don't take these things gracefully...
Even if I may have appeared to at the time...
All you could see was the back of my head as I ran the other way...
The tears were mine alone...
People doing what they need to do have no need of someone else's tears... even on a good day...
And today is not a good day...
The ghosts in the room haunt me...
Endlessly reminding me...
of why I even cared...
I took this picture because I didn't want to forget...
It's taken me a week to actually be able to put it to words...
I wandered into a little bookstore last weekend just to have a look around... I didn't really want anything new to read... I just wanted to be with the books...
This was a really cool little store with lots of twists and turns and places to hide... and there was a small winding staircase which led to a room below ground... When I went down there is was almost like I'd stumbled on the 'place where all my books went' because I was suddenly surrounded by all kinds of books that I'd read and loved... As I wandered around saying hello to old friends I came across one of my favorite childhood books, 'The Secret Garden'
I reached out for it when suddenly I was hit with one of those total recall type of flashbacks where I relived an incident from 5th grade in harsh, glaring detail. I won't tell you what I did, but I'm not proud of it. At the time I just didn't think about it. It was no big deal, no one noticed... Only watching that scene again through my adult eyes I knew... I knew that it WAS a big deal... That some small part of myself that I'd thought was hidden... was really wide open... That not being called on something is not the same as getting away with it...
And it was like the ground fell out from under me... And as I fell heels over head I wondered to myself, 'How anyone EVER survive if we have to remember every... single... thing...'
It took me the better part of 2 hours to be able to breathe again... and to tell myself that 10 year olds are not adults... That making mistakes is part of growing... That I could think about it later...
So I put it away until I could make it make sense... And strangely enough, it does...
This quest for self-actualization hopefully means that as I go on with this thing called life I will get better at it... And keep getting better...
However if I do the math this means that who and what I was before is not as IMPROVED as who I am now and that hopefully who I am tomorrow will be WAY better than who I am today... But it's really hard being reminded of where I started from...
Sometimes it's enough to knock the wind right out of me...
said the angel to the little girl...
"There is only happily."
"And the color of the circles you dance around it as you run in search of something that doesn't exist."
"It follows behind you tirelessly..."
"Waiting for you to remember it's there."
Have you ever found that certain songs, shades of light or even colors...
Remind you of someone you still miss...
Even though in hindsight you know...
That it isn't what you wanted... or needed...
That it couldn't have ended any other way... really...
Me either...
Not on a day to day basis...
But in total... Like you're about to run out of life and you didn't really accomplish anything...
Well... spectacular?
Of course I know that I have have purposely chosen to limit the shooting star/fiery crash & burn factor in exchange for having time to actually enjoy living and breathing and loving and being present for my children...
But I still want to create... I still want things to spring to life from my hands...
And spin off with a life of their own...
And ok to come back from time to time...
I still love shiny things...
And I still owe someone a story about a girl in a well...
... but I think i'm finally relaxed...
There's a gentle smile on my face as the energy turns in a slow spiral...
And even though I hold out my hands in a characteristic open, palms outward, arms raised pose no one seems to notice...
And to think, I used to have to go hide in the closet to be alone with my thoughts and my stars and my energy...
And the color blue...
How can anyone not be greatful for the color blue... and laughter... and singing... and high cliffs and lonely girls... and the color blue...
And the color blue...
You have no idea...
I can't even make it small enough or still enough to twist into words...
You don't even know...
The feelings get bigger and the words get smaller and here I am again playing the saddest songs I can find...
You get enough holes and they all blend together and you can't even tell where one starts and the next begins... and you realize after a time there's nothing broken so nothing to fix and the only thing left is sad songs in the dark...
My life is good... Really really good...
I have a fabulous job, wonderful husband, great kids, amazing friends...
Maybe it's my age, but I'm happy in my own skin...
But sometimes... I realize how different my life is from many people's and I hear about or read about places where individual ideas or genders or people are not valued... and I realize that the life I lead would not be possible in another place, or time... and that who I am and what I believe and the way I live my life would not necessarily be acceptable to other people, even in this here and this now...
And the world suddenly feels a little precarious...
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