Twenty and one

I can't go back and change things. I can't take back time or words or feelings. But I can look at them and smile, or laugh or want to weep inside; but that makes them all apart of me, of who I am, now, standing on this ground solidly, rather than a past I must work to leave behind.

This past year has been the hardest of my life. But it's also been the most wonderful. I've been challenged by things I didn't know about, I've been stupid and nieve and I ended up hurting some people I had no intention of causing pain, including myself.
I learned about real love. and real pain; real heart break.
I learned about real respect and the work it takes to give it to yourself, and that you must do this in order to expect to be respected.
I learned about a sublime kind of love woven, in trust and kindness, in the courage it takes to believe in something and unbelievable miracles from God, in faith, and in compassion.

 I found people who astounded me, I found love that surprised me. I found myself growing in the pristine waters of a dark rock quarry reflecting a million stars and rippled dancing shadows in Washington state, I found a bit of myself on the phone in a friends voice.
I found respect for love, the kind you never throw away. I for myself, that I am always the one who has to give it to myself first and not let myself be trampled down.

Last year, I was such a different person, my life looked so different and yet I still know her, that girl I used to be, I know her dreams and her wants and her laughter is still the same as mine, she is just growing inside of me.

Last year I made a list of twenty things I wanted to do while I was twenty, I had no idea where I would be, or go, or what I would feel, and I had no clue that so many of the things I wrote down on that list were to come true.
http://barefootheart.blogspot.com/2011/03/20-things-i-want-to-do-while-im-twenty.html
(link to the original post)

I only missed four. (numbers 8,7,5,1.) perhaps they will carry on to this next year. In fact I'm fairly sure most of them will.
And I am still compiling the list for this year.

I have over come such fear, and yet I can still feel more of it, buried at the edge of my muscles, hidden in the dark fissures of my bones; a fear I must face. A fear I must let go.

It is nearing 3am in this dark and quiet house in California, I can hear the soft whoosh of cars passing slowly on the near distant road. I hear the house shift around me, the draft from the window cool on my skin. I am transported back to last year, back to waking up on my birthday to sleepy kisses and sun on melted snow and a realization too big to understand. But I'm alone tonight, my things strewn around the room, red polka dot skirt on the floor, all waiting for something, to be packed, or laundered, or put away; all a bit like me, strewn and a little messy, but finding a kind of comfort in this chaos, because there will be order, there is something I can work towards, I am just waiting to know, where it is I belong.



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