Tag Archives: Growing up

We Walk On

11 Aug

I have an announcement to make: everybody feels like they are faking it.

We are all just along for the ride, and really have no clue what we are doing or where we are going. Even moments of confidence and accomplishment feel so short-lived.

Life comes at you the older you get, and parenthood adds a whole new dimension of responsibility and anxiety. These tiny human beings look at you with all the trust in their eyes because they don't know anything different. We are keeping them alive, shaping them, teaching them what love looks like. But even that we have no control over when it comes down to it.

The world is broken. People make choices and sometimes (often) choices are bad. The only thing you can do is let go and pray for the best.

Some intellects believe people of faith are weak, and actually, it's true. Only, we are ALL weak, and it's in the acknowledgment of it that we gain freedom. But the paradox of Christianity (and really all humanity) is we are also so strong. We are always pressing forward, overcoming adversity and bone-crushing sorrow. Always forging a new path. Always growing. Always making a way.

It's been in our DNA since the dawn of creation: build, create, reproduce, raise up, destroy the limits. Create civilizations, cultures, languages, inventions, art, of out seemingly nothing. Almost as if our blood was infused with the need for the New, the need to move forward, to make our lives and the world around us better.

And so we persevere. We battle the daily, hourly, voices telling us we will never be good enough and we keep living. We keep raising our kids, building a home, a new idea, a movement, a community. We keep ignoring the noise in our minds arguing the futility of it all, and we make something of our lives. We strive to create a better world for our children like our ancestors did. We use our minds and our hands. We discover and conquer. We bleed for a cause. We feel incredibly weak and extremely strong, we feel moments of stupidity and brilliance, love and rage, selfishness and compassion.

But we are human and there is so much grace for that.

If we are quiet and still, we can hear God among us, cheering us on:

You are loved. Give yourself grace.
Today is a gift.

And we walk on.

"You're a million years of work," said God and his angels with needle and thread. They kiss your head and said, "You're good, kid. You make us proud. So just give your best and the rest will come and we'll see you soon."

-Needle and Thread by Sleeping at Last

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Here’s To The Fools Who Dream

23 Mar
Remember when you were 19 and the whole world was yours? It was so open and astounding and you knew you could conquer it.

You were convinced your life had deep meaning and purpose.

You knew it was your destiny to change the world.

So you took risks. You went out on a limb. You made decisions not based on a practical way to climb the typical ladder of success, but based on a small voice inside telling you to screw the ladder and jump.
fools who dream
So you did. With both eyes closed and an enormous smile on your face.

The words you wrote may have been naive and riddled with grammar errors, but they were real and alive and full of conviction.

You saw the world and knew it was beautiful and that you were the luckiest girl in it.

Remember how you believed every day mattered?

That every person you passed on the street wasn’t just part of the scenery, but a unique soul who’s path was forever intertwined in yours.

Remember how you lived your life always looking for signs, which seems ridiculous now, but you actually found them?

Rainy days and ocean sprays made you cry.

Conversations were long and meaningful, and you were never afraid to pour out your heart.

Remember, dear one, when you would dream the most fantastic dreams, and you just knew (like you recognized your own face) that they would happen?

It was simply a fact.

Then things were taking too long, so you attached dates to those dreams, not realizing that the deadlines were weighing them down, essentially believing they would eventually expire.
Somehow, years have gone by and your body and mind and soul have been worn out by the miles.
You’ve past many deadlines in your head,  even the ones you’ve extended several times.

What once felt like an adventure feels like a hassle. Somehow you’ve arrived at the place where the magical feels mundane.

Even when you start to dream again you are hit full force with a dark voice that you’ve allowed a platform on your inner stage,

“Nothing will ever change.”

“It’s too late.”
“Please, just be practical.”

When the easy way out looks inviting, or simply that all other paths are impossible,

When you’ve been lulled to sleep by an over- saturation of worry, doubt, jealously and fear, or worse, you simply feel… nothing.

When it seems like everyone else gets a break, that you’re stuck in this endless cycle and trying and failing, of constant disappointment.

Don’t lose heart.
Look at your daughter, looking out the window and praying for snow in 85 degree weather, smiling and saying, “Now I can build a snowman with daddy!”
Learn from her. Unlearn your cynicism. Remember.
Remember how to create characters and whole universes in you mind.
Let it replace the anxiety and stress.

Keep going, my dear. Every. Single. Day.
Keep yourself open, my dear. Even open to pain.

Don’t forget my dear, dreams don’t have deadlines. Just because you’re not where you thought you’d be, doesn’t mean it’s over.

It’s never over.
Don’t bind yourself with the chains of imaginary time constraints.
Beautiful things take time to grow.
Don’t rush a thing before it’s ready to be born.
Let it gestate. It WILL come when it’s ready.

Keep hoping. Surround yourself with dreamers.

Don’t ever grow up.

Dream big, but know that what you’re doing now matters:

Raising tiny, awesome people. Writing tiny words. Little connections. Minuscule prayers.

This moment matters. Today. How you react to your husband. How you treat the waitress. What you create. How you treat yourself. How you love.

Be one of the foolish ones that shames the “wise.”

Know you have every dream in the history of the universe inside you. 
So don’t be afraid.

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Tight-Rope Walking Across Manhatten

3 Oct

Change.

I used to be so in love with it. I still am, but it’s more of a complex, love-hate relationship. Now, it brings worry that seems less easy to brush off, it clings to me causing occasional sleeplessness and intense feelings of anxiety.

Change comes dressed in a variety of ways lately, in the big things like my name having several different letters and in reorienting my life with another person. It shows itself in packed-up boxes and the abandonment of paintings that have been hanging on my walls for years. It’s apparent in the heat in the air beginning to lift, and the joy of waking next to my husband. Chang is in getting used to that word, and other new words.

Last week I stood in the mud by the side of the highway next to my broken-down car, two days after my husband’s car kicked the bucket, the day before we had to move out of our apartment, four days before I would seriously start looking for a new job. (I know. Seriously. Right?)

Changes. Once you finally settle into one thing, it’s time to let go of it, time to embrace another one that is about to run full force into your life.

And you’ve got to make room for it.

Room in your brain and your heart.

Room where the old has lived so long, you’ve allowed the dust to form, grey and thick.

You’ve got to sweep, let some fresh air in. It gets too musty when things remain the same.

I read this quote by Jeanette Winterson the other day, and it made me feel normal again, glad I wasn’t the only one who at times feels too weary to clean my teeth.

There’s a strange thing that happens when you go from your early to your late twenties. Maybe it’s normal, it’s only weird because I am currently in the midst of it.

Growing up.

I guess I felt so strongly I would always be this crazy-adventurous, antsy, flexible person who was so afraid of “settling.”

Now I find myself balking at change, making decisions based on how comfortable I will feel, and stressing at the first sign of things going wrong.

“I used to secretly love it when the bus I lived on broke down,”

I confessed to my husband as we waited for rescue on the side of the highway next to my dead car.

“Yes, but that was different. You didn’t own the bus. It wasn’t your responsibility.

Responsibility. Adulthood. Bills. Financial decisions.

It comes all upon you at once.

Like joy and pain and life happening.

And you know what? Even when things seem overwhelming and insane, I’d rather have everything at once.

And I’d rather be where I am in life right now, because I am not living life alone.

I’d rather have change and be uncomfortable than stand still.

And I am not afraid of “settling” anymore.

What I am afraid of, is not having eyes to see that all of this is an adventure.

Even if it’s not the kind that will become a best-selling-book-turned-blockbuster…. yet.

I am afraid I won’t see the beauty in change. It’s hard in Texas where the autumn doesn’t announce itself in a burst of color like New England, and you have to relay on coffee shops with their seasonal flavors and piles of pumpkins in store fronts, far away from the farm they came from.

My biggest fear though, is that I’ll stop looking for those things, I’ll stop finding things to be in awe about. I’ll take life for granted and have nothing to write.

But I am proving myself wrong right now, because the for the first time in a while I am able to put words to just what is going on around me and inside me.

Change is happening, and will continue to happen, and it is beautiful.

And one day, in the midst of all these crazy life changes,  maybe I will feel as if I could tight-rope walk across Manhattan.

 

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I Know You.

28 Jun

I know you.

You think you are the only one who wakes up from a disturbing dream, and sinks back into the feeling that you don’t really want to be awake today.

You feel crazy when you start crying when fresh coffee cascades all over the counter. There is some kind of leak in your french press and you can’t find it.  This faithful friend is suddenly your enemy, determined to ruin your day.

You hate it when you get the urge to check your phone, but you do it anyways. Sometimes you do it so many times you feel sick. You tell yourself you are just making sure no one is trying to reach you, a text or even a simple “like” giving you a split second thrill, only to be replaced with loneliness.

I know you get online to try to drown out the unanswered questions in your mind.  You scroll through hundreds of pictures of colorful home decor and genius healthy recipes because you feel like you are lacking something.

I know you’re just around thirty and feel like that means your life should look like something else.

Like children in school, a mortgage and a career.

Like creating successful art and living independently in a beautiful, foreign city.

Like not constantly second guessing yourself.

Like not still being afraid to talk to people.

I know you look at old photographs of yourself with both a loathing and an envy, remembering the time you were so:

Naive.

Free.

Insecure.

Passionate.

Messy.

Then you shake your head, because even though you feel like a completely different person, the old one is in you, buried beneath experiences that have left you jaded.

But you are still yourself. You can’t escape that.

You think you are the only one who has let their dream die,  just watched it shrivel up in front of you. You could have resuscitated it, but fear got in the way.

“No… it can’t be mine. It can’t be real. It will never happen anyway.”

Sometimes, you feel the ghosts of those dreams hitting your gut from the inside, a pregnant flutter that comes from a line in a TV show or a billboard from a travel agency.

You know resurrection is possible, but not yet.

I know what you’re waiting for:

The Next Best Thing. 

Emotional Healing.

Marriage.

Moving.

More Money.

A Spiritual Awakening.

A different situation than the one you’re in.

I know you believe 90% of the time that’s where your happiness lives, and I know that the other 10% is spent with your internal eyes open, screaming at the rest yourself to WAKE UP.

I know you don’t want to spend your life distracted. You want meaningful relationships, you want to make a difference, you want to love yourself, love others and love God.

I know you’re tired of the formulas to achieve these things, the step-by-step instructions from people who seems to have all this and more just dropped into their lap.

I know your  jealousy for these people keeps you from seeing what they are really saying. You either vilify them or put then on a pedestal.

But in the end, it does nothing but drive a wider rift in your “us vs. them” mentality.

There is NO “us vs. them.”

I know you, because you are me.

You are all of us.

The greatest lie is that you are alone, that what you are experiencing is unique to you.

We are conditioned  to think of ourselves as separate, and so become emotionally vacant.

But this.

This is the human experience.

We grow up, lose our wild eyes and become slaves to worry.

We always want what we don’t have.

We compare, we criticize and we think we are different and alone, not good enough, too emotional, too fat, too weak to kick our addictions.

We search, we run away,  we stay put out of fear.

We love, our hearts break, we question God, we stop faking it.

We’d do anything to see our dreams come true, if not in our lifetime then our children’s or grandchildren’s.

We want our time on earth to mean something more. 

More than our years spent here. More than our words. More than numbers or old photos.

And somewhere in-between all of our experiences, all our pain and joy and “figuring things out,”

We come to see,  Life itself is grace.

and when we are really awake, that becomes enough.

listen

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A Dozen Things I Like at 28

30 May

I recently turned 28. I was going to write this serious, reflective post, but there is too much going on in my life right now to scratch the surface of my deep emotional currents. So instead I made this list of things I find myself liking more as I get older. Enjoy the random break from poetry. 🙂

1. Limes.

What a wonderful sour yet happy fruit. Somehow tastier than lemons. And prettier. The lime makes something as boring as water exciting. One word: Mojitos! And don’t get me started on Key Limes.

2. Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

Maybe I am just letting my repressed childhood nerd come out. I love the imagination with no limits in storytelling, the lessons about humanity. Sometimes it seems more real than reality. Take me away on the T.A.R.D.I.S, Doctor.

3. Every genre of music.

Country and Folk can tell great stories of every day life. Hip-Hop can express our pain and passion. Rock can be a rallying cry. Pop is pop for a reason. It’s all about the lyrics.

4.Coconut.

Everything coconut. (Yes, I will put the lime in the coconut and drink them both up.)

5. Entertaining movies.

I still love the slow, thought-provoking Indie flicks, but I am allowing myself to stop being judgmental and just have fun. I don’t have to find life’s meaning in every blockbuster. (But I’ll probably never stop trying.)

6. Staying home.

Shocker. I honestly never thought I’d see the day. I still have a taste for adventure, I’ve just become less antsy. Trust me, It’s a good thing.

7.My love for poetry.

It’s getting harder to express myself in any other way. Hence this ridiculous post.

8. Beer.

We have a love/hate relationship. I am requiring a taste for it after pretending to like Bud Light just to seem cool and get drunk in High School, then abandoning all alcohol  in my “holy” years.  Give me Blue Moon and Guinness,  please.

9. Not being so intense.

Ok, I still am. But not as bad. I don’t want to lose my good intensity, if it’s possible to differentiate. I guess I am learning to brush things off and move on. And laugh at myself little but more.

10. Liking myself.

This is a big deal. I wasted way too much time in self-hatred. Now I can’t get over my awesomeness. 😉

11. Fried eggs.

For breakfast. Every day. With a runny yoke. A year ago the thought of anything other than scrambled would have made me want to throw up.

12. Being ok with where I am spiritually.

All things are accomplished. Yes and amen. No more paranoia or intense longing to be better. I can rest.

5 and 28. Not that different.

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A Short History of Roads

6 Mar

Sometimes I have flashbacks of certain roads.

Maybe because I have spent so much time with them.

Living on them. Loving them. Hating them.

Wondering where certain ones will lead.

1.

Walking on a rocky dirt road with thick jungle to my right and a trash covered beach to my left.  My sense of adventure is heightened after hearing tales from an expatriate in a hostel of a black panther that stalks his home.

I am 23, and once again letting go at the life I thought I had. My hair is carelessly short, and I don’t do anything to tame it. I have no money in my bank account or future plans, other than a lofty desire to change the world through what I write.

I sit on the beach and write poetry. The words are naked and beyond me. The ocean waves break into my mind, affecting the cadence.

I have never felt so free.

2.

The road is ambling,  full of potholes and bumps from the harsh New England winters. The dirty river, which imagine to be chocolate, is eating away at the bank, causing the road to grow narrow as I grow taller.

I am eight, and my imagination takes me everywhere. I am an explorer, a sailor, an astronaut. I am abandoned on a deserted island with nothing but tree bark to survive on.

I am strong. I am well-loved. I am going to change the world.

3.

A decade later, I walk down a path in East Texas, intoxicated by fragrant white flowers that grow wild on bushes, their scent pushing its way into my broken heart, my guilty mind. I mutter prayers to myself, everything and anything, so desperately seeking God to make me better. I make my way into the pine woods, oblivious to the lengthening shadows and the dozens of things to accomplish the next day.

I am hungry, deep in the pit of my stomach. I am desperate to be more.

They say life is a journey, and I understand why.

I see my life so far in moments.

In places.

In walks down roads.

It is not a straight path or a  neat track where you can time and measure and compare your position to others before you cross a finish line.

Instead, it is a crooked path down a series of roads that seem sporadic and misguided, and if analyzed too deeply I may come believe I am lost.

But when I stop my analysis and close my eyes I once again become the first eight-year-old astronaut,

And as I blast off above the atmosphere, I take my gaze off the stars ahead and look down and see,

All roads interconnecting and intertwining and leading me to one place:

Here and now.

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The Silence Between Words

15 Oct

I needed this weekend more than I realized. I needed to get away, even if it was just eighty miles from home.

I needed to feel the wind coming in off the grey choppy waters of Lake Whitney. I needed to walk along pale smooth rocks with my dog. I needed to feel the quick excitement at the accomplishment of getting a fire started, and in keeping it going as the wind sought to blow it out until the fire grew strong.

I needed to run down the orange sand beach while the rain started, throw on my bathing suit without thinking about how crazy it was, jump in the lake with three of my closest friends.

I needed to be a child, dunking under in a moment of bravery, a moment of desiring to live fully.

It felt a bit like a coming to life as I resurfaced.

Like defying changing seasons and coming cold. Like baptism. Like defying death.

I fell onto my back with a splash, letting my breath create buoyancy in my body, letting my eyelids shut and the rain fall soft on my face. The air and water around me and the water coming down on me all the same temperature.

I needed to feel that peace.

To listen to the silence between the noise of my life.

Allow it to fill me. Allow me to fill it.

I needed that silence to erupt into a liquid hot burst of joy.

Then the four of us, connected by years of shared memories, broken hearts,  miles traveled and revelations, put words to our lives.

Hard decisions and healing wounds and the journey to finally be ok with who we are.

We accepted each other, each in a different yet similar place.

I needed to be a reminded what a gift these woman are in my life.

How relationships deepening with time is what makes life worthwhile, what drives away our fear of growing up and getting old.

I needed to know how much we need each other.

———————————————————————————————————————–

We left our campsite after a warning from the park ranger of a coming storm that could blow our tent away.

We drove around the tiny town that shared the name with the tiny town I grew up in in New Hampshire.

I laughed and shook my head at the irony,

“And…. life comes full circle.”

We ended up in a motel and spent the evening talking, drinking, eating, and writing.

The writing was unexpected.

We  thought of a topic then had ten minutes to write whatever came to mind without once stopping or taking our pen off the paper.

Then we read them out loud.

We laughed at our shared random humor, nodded in agreement and encouraged each others talent.

The last topic was “true love,” and each of us brought something honest, funny, and perhaps a little cynical.

I needed to write.  I needed to hear my thoughts put to words, to hear my friend’s words spill out of their hearts.

To know I am not crazy or alone.

To remember what I have, and how precious it really is.

—————————————————————————–

We parted ways and drove home, exhausted and rejuvenated all at once. Content yet discontent in the things that needed to change in our lives.

But most of all, thankful.

Thankful for words that flow between friends.

For healing. For moving forward. For freedom.

For cool lakes and storms and hotel beds and wine and paper and pen.

And for the silence between the words, the real understanding.

The real grace.

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27 Reasons Why 27 is Better Than 17

24 Aug

1. I believe in fairy tales again– not the cliché perfectionist view of love, but the magic of every day life.

2. I have learned to love myself. To brush aside my flaws, to give myself grace.

3.  Things that once stirred nameless inside of me, now have names.

4. I know more than ever, I am a writer. I am not ashamed of this.

5. I am not afraid to screw up and fall. In fact, I am confident that I will.

6. I am no longer waiting for a man to fix my life.

7. I have a man who reminds me that life is beautiful and so am I.

8. The skeletons in my closet have long been thrown into a bottomless ocean.

9. My expectations are lower, so my joy comes quicker.

10. I don’t have to “figure everything out.”

11. It is not the end of the world–this too shall pass.

12. My pain doesn’t define me.

13. People are just … people.

14. I am able to see my own story in a wider context, my eyes are not just focused on the awful and stormy beginning chapters of adolescence.

My 17-year-old artistic attempts.

15. I’ve seen more bad but I’ve also seen more redemption.

16. I am not completely sure of what I believe, and that’s ok.

17. “Gospel” is not a stale, religious word, but life and bread.

18. I know I can’t “fix myself” and it’s a sweet relief.

19. I am no longer attempting to change the world–at least not the way I thought I would.

20. My life plans have been crumpled up and thrown out the window enough times to know that next time I may as well just fold them into a paper airplane and laugh as they fly away.

21. I am no longer counting the second (third, fourth, etc) chances I get, because I am no longer worried they’ll run out and I won’t “deserve” any more.

22. Friendship: fewer, deeper. Those that stick through all the changes are truly life-long.

23. I’ve learned to educate myself.

24. The world is a bit crazier maybe, but there are way more possibilities.

25. I may be 30 pounds heavier, but now I have curves! 😉

26. Connecting with Jesus is not limited to church services, bible reading, and not screwing up.

27. Happiness has nothing to do with geography.

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As I Grow Into These Things

24 May

I have had a few memorable birthday moments.

Anything before my teenage years is mostly a blur. I remember my 5th birthday because there is an old VHS of me wearing my burgundy flowered shift and an awful mullet-ish haircut. My dad dressed up like a clown, a creepy clown from 1990. My friend Hannah was terrified of him. I knew he was just my goofy dad so it didn’t bother me.

My mom made an organic carib cake and gave the girls potted flowers for a party favor. The boys got hot wheels.

Everyone I knew that was between the ages of 3 and 9  was at that party. We played pin the tale on the donkey and had balloon relays.

My 16th birthday my boyfriend got me a hamster. Yes, that is what I asked for. That night I had a girl’s sleepover with my best friends. This meant prank time. We were all nervous to fall asleep because we couldn’t handle the cruel and hilarious things we would do to each other. My friend Leah fell asleep first and  ended up with inappropriate things written in pink cake frosting across her face. She wasn’t happy when she woke up with a rash.

The year I turned 18, I was in Romania. I danced with gypsies in the tower of a restaurant that was  the birthplace of the evil ruler from whom the legend of Dracula was formed. This was before vampires were cool.

On my 23rd birthday, I jumped off a white limestone cliff into the depths of Lake Whitney.

My 24th birthday I woke up in Texas after a few months in New Hampshire  being in a whirlwind dysfunctional relationship I knew deep down wasn’t going to last. I was staying at a friends who picked me up from the airport the night before, and saw a book about Mother Theresa on my bedside table. Something in me shifted, and said “That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go to India.” Suddenly, I was free.

A few months later I met the (real) man of my dreams. A year later I came home from two and a half months in India, a different person. I spent that birthday on a rooftop overlooking the city at night, eating delicious gourmet Tex-Mex after living on rice and dall.

My 26th birthday, I outran a tornado. I was at the movies and the power went off. I went outside to see black swirling clouds. I was with my boyfriend and his parents and we quickly raced back to the house, seeing the destruction from the Tornado on the way.

A week later, I left the ministry I was working at. For the first time since 2004, I wasn’t under some sort of umbrella of a ministry.

And so I spent the year writing. I found myself, a writer. In nine months a book was formed. This is what I’ve wanted ever since before I was that 5-year-old running around popping balloons eating carib cake.

I tend to favor even-numbered years, but I have to say they are all pretty amazing.

Last night I was driving home from work after a long rather frustrating day. I was emotional and on edge. I’d been looking for a dog for months and nothing was working out.

I walked in the door to my apartment right as the clock turned midnight and it was my birthday.

My boyfriend and roommate were standing there. So was a perfect Boston Terrier puppy with a red ribbon around his neck. He ran to me and I dropped to the floor and cried, the puppy kissing my face.

When I was thirteen my parent’s gave me Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. I am sure I would laugh at it now, but at the time, it spoke in a language I didn’t realize my soul was parched for.

I remember one essay well, about how we grow old in layers like an onion.

So when we are 12 we are 11, 10, 9, 8.. etc, etc.

I carry all these ages in me. Having a puppy makes me feel 10, like the little girl who wanted nothing more than to be with animals because they taught me how to be human.

All these ages I carry inside of me. It has made me who I am.

That is why I no longer fear growing old.

There are beautiful things in life to grow alive to, and many of them take time.

Love. A sense of community and home. Being ok with ones selves. My writing. A deeper sense of the presence of God all around me. Daily thankfulness and contentment.

I look forward to growing into these things as these things grow into me.

So bring it on, 27.

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Some Sort of Belonging

21 Jul

It all begins with a newborn’s first cry. I guess if you are going to begin somewhere, there is not much further back you can go.

She enters the world, not understanding why this warm space she’s been taking up is fading away. The room she enters is cold, sterile, unfriendly.

I wanna go back! She yells, the moment her lungs are clear.

Which way is home?

In the arms of her mother, she senses relief. Warmth. Familiarity. This is where I belong.


(Fast forward 10 years.)

Screams of another kind fill her head.

You are strange.
You will never be like her.
You will never be good enough
Your toes are funny shaped
Your knees are knobby
You have that weird bump on your nose
Your eyelashes are too short.
You get nervous when you try to speak.

Panicking, frantically, she asks whoever made her to allow her to grow into someone beautiful, someone normal, someone wanted.

She decides to run away, though it’s not like the books she reads where the orphan gets beaten with a broom handle by her evil aunt. She doesn’t really have a good excuse, she knows her parents love her, at least most of the time. She almost wishes she had a good reason to leave, but something else beyond logic, beyond what she’s read about, beyond feeling unworthy drives her.

She runs into the forest, as fast as she can, catching herself from nearly tripping over logs with her long legs, hands in front of face avoiding jagged branch right at eye height.

She sees a clearing and falls, exhausted.

Sitting in the still woods, surrounded by live things taller and stronger then her, trees that have stayed planted, that know who they are, who pushed their way through the ground towards the sunlight, who know stand proudly.

I am lost,

She whispers, even though she can easily find her way back.


(Skip ahead another 10 years.)

She stands, finally grown into herself, among a crowd of peers. She’s moved four times in the past two years. She’s opened her heart, her bed and her mind, only to find herself left aching and alone. She’s tried to connect, to define herself within a context of a man’s words, a group of friend, a good education.

Yet she feels like a branch that has been snapped off the tree it came from.

Which way is home?

At the point of losing it all, she finds herself in another forest, tall buildings planted around her, the offices of successful, “happy”  people. Buildings that were planned, wanted, designed to be aesthetically pleasing. She runs, past throngs of people, people who she perceive know exactly who they are and where their place in the world is.

She runs, oblivious to shouts and stares around her. She runs till her legs give out and she finds herself on the pavement, knobby knee skinned, red dripping out, and then comes the rush of tears and she feels like she’s 9 or maybe 3 and she wants nothing more then for her mother or a man with a kind face and genuine heart, to simply put their hand on her back somehow let their touch bleed through into her aching heart.

I am lost.

She whispers, even though she is kneeling outside the park she frequently walks in.

Just then,  she senses relief. A feeling of some sort of…. Belonging.

Warmth. Familiarity.

An air too fresh to come out of the city.

Something ancient, something alive, stirring the green leaves of a tree standing in front of her.

Somehow she knows there is a love that won’t leave, that won’t find a single fault in her,

that might even be her home.


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