Story

Starting with Jesus coming right up to me and kissing me on the brow and for that moment, that brief moment I was all healed up. All those broken pieces came together and there was some kind of revival in my mal-content, some new nourishment in my soul and I was hopeful and riding the Billy Graham train to glory. But then the long years of shock and awe dropped me at his feet (nail scarred) and all those prayers? Those thousands of prayers that went seemingly unanswered are showing up as I am looking up, with tears that will not slow down and dark circles of pain that can no longer be hidden. I want to be kind and at peace with the pain, but truth be told I am angry at it all, angry and feeling tragic (Shakespearian tragic) all bones and broken places. You wouldn’t know that about me most days, you would probably think I am alright and sort of blessed (and I am that too) but the truth is I’m in the home for the bewildered most hours and days of the weeks and I can’t seem to graduate with honors in this damn study of life. I can be brittle as these bones, as closed up as a church door after hours. It’s not the way I want to be and I work damn hard to be patient and kind, but the truth is I have been fractured in ways unimaginable. My life for the most part now, is witnessed from my room where I lay my head at night, after trying once again to knock on heavens door. I know the neighbor above me is God and I just want to have a chat, but these past years he has been strangely quiet and I have grown increasingly lost in a sea of what should be and what is…Tears in my ears are my familiar bedfellow. Most things never change. I wonder how long till the wizard behind the curtain is revealed.

Prose

I hope there are days when you fall in love with life again

I don’t know about you but I often wonder when that “Happy Ever After” thing starts to happen. I mean, honestly I have been looking at my watch, standing on the platform in the train station waiting. I have worn my best clothes and my favorite hat and I have been so well intended with my steps to standing there, with that smile of mine that wants to be genuine and real, but if I am honest is sometimes faked to make those around me feel better. Truth be told I am standing there waving goodbye to all those smiling, laughing people (some of who I know very well and some who are strangers.) They seem so alive with their bright, white smiles and their ticket to their destination stamped and ready. They are going to be happy I can just see it in their hopefulness. They are “living their best life” and I am waving goodbye and I am smiling for them, I really am but I am heavy with longing for my ticket and I keep looking for that Conductor and his “Happy place stamp” to come and stamp my ticket, so I can board and smile and wave and know that I am finally on that destination.

I want to fall in love with life again.

I want to see those babies all around me, with their mommas and their Grandmother and I want to have that rush of my heart that says “Mine.” Connection of flesh and bones and blood that binds with history and hope.

I want to see that beloved, who said “I do” and our eyes were locked into one another and we felt the faint rustle of hope in our raggedy ol hearts. The one who remembers to take out the trash and rub my tailbone and cry with me when the news comes that there will never be those babies.

I want to sit outside under a canopy of stars and little lights with all of those who tore into my heart like a wild thing and left their mark. The ones who came and went and promised and lied and lingered and loved and died. I want to see them one more time and have everything be healed as it should be. The bruises faded and the daggers removed, I want to see the ones who left this earth too soon and took a piece of me with them. I want that piece to be brought back, under the canopy of stars and tucked into the pocket of my overcoat with the collar up to keep me warm so that I feel whole again even though I know they must go. I want that to be okay.

I want to travel across the great expanse of land in my bare feet without thorn and rocks and obsession over the uncertainty of the terrain in front of me. I want to be able to look up and see what is right in front of me, beckoning me back into the moment of being happy just walking freely again.

I want to lay in the cool of the surf and sand and see the whales breaching the surface and the intake of my breath with theirs will launch me with them for one brief moment I am spellbound and all else is forgotten. For one brief moment I am that kid again, tangled hair and runny nose across the sand while laughter rings like a bell into the morning air. I want to not be afraid of anything.

I want to fall in love with life again and color outside the lines and build dreams that have me dancing on my toes and running without my chest laboring or my legs aching. I want to be able to look life in the eye, clear eyed, bright, hopeful, insightful, true.

I want that for me

and I want that for you