I took the path less traveled............

I wanted to curl up in a time and place and just stay still. Every time I fell for peace, only a rude awakening was there to help me up. And so I smiled. alot. More than the workers at Disneyworld and an Up With People parade with tiny pink teddy bears iceskating with cupcakes on frozen rock candy rivers. i smiled more than that. I filled holes left like bullet wounds in my heart with whatever might stop the bleeding, ...........but I still smiled. I made a family out of fragments and cried myself to sleep each night alone, but I still smiled. My soul was a refrigerator, cold as the doors opened.........with all that was good spoiled now or already thrown out. Searching for leftovers just to sustain and maintain that smile. No pills could fill me up. I was starving.
And then there was this. Churches that stood brightly illuminated in the night, telling me a tale of 500 years past. A ferris wheel lit as fireworks cascaded down in the sky. And the music echoed through the streets. Warm sounds of bass tweeked to the point of either making your ears bleed or your soul quake. Everything I am supposed to hate or outgrow, there she was. my moment. and i smiled. I sat there quietly. Yes I'm ok, no I'm not cold. And I went to find her.

I was quiet most of the evening. taking it all in. But, by the end of the night, I danced with the abandon that was there for so long. The free spirit that made you all love me before hating me. The smiling, shining freedom of laughter and love........that left me one Sunday morning nearly two years ago.. Yes, I crumbled and stumbled down a dark path to go retrieve the woman who got stuck down there. to find her and forgive her. And with every breath in a swirl of lights at 5am, I told her it's gonna be ok. and i smiled.