Another 24 hour period passing by, unstoppable like the waves of the sea…
Seemingly helpless, I have watched not only days, but over 50 years slip by, often feeling defeated by the circumstances in which I find myself.
There have been husbands, children, and now grandchildren.
Vital parts of my life cut out by irreversible choices. The fault is not important, but the hole left behind is real.
As the years pass the wound grows wider.
Can there be healing?
My door is always open, my heart seeking for a reunion long past due. But choice, personal decision, can not be forced by another so I wait, hoping, begging, bargaining with unspoken prayers.
Life moves onward like the passing of the seasons, the spring of youth, the summer of choice, the fall of regret, and the winter of lost hope.
The cycle repeats year after year.
The successful find fame and fortune, the persistent make a name for themselves, the evil doers find space on the news.
The lost, lonely, and forgotten are erased from our conscience like waste tossed in the basket of life.
Where do I fit in?
I can wallow in self-pity, spew out blame, make excuses, find a scapegoat, but ultimately my life is what I choose to make it.
Armed with the tools I am given or make the effort to acquire, I build my own house one board one nail at a time. I apply new paint, but eventually it chips away.
Adding a new room makes it bigger but lonelier somehow.
Filling it with objects has little appeal for they offer no comfort.
My house lies empty. I rattle around inside, searching for meaning and purpose.
Escape is desirable and attainable. But the longing to try is declining, the effort seems too much.
What difference would it make?
I am not successful, persistent, or evil no one would even notice.
Giving up is so much easier, until I find myself in an old folk’s home, feeble, weak and memory fading.
No longer able to lift the hammer, to pound a single nail, my chance to remodel is lost forever.
That picture horrifies me!
I race to find my misplaced tool box, surly there is work to be done.
Disappointed I fine only a pen and a pad of paper. The pen is ordinary, holds no magical powers, but in my fingers thoughts flow and materialize line after line.
“Who would read this?” I wonder aloud but it matters not.
The walls of my house go un-noticed as my stack of pages grows taller.
The visions that fill my head take me from this world to one of childhood memories.
I laugh and lost joy is relived.
The pictures, long packed away, rush through my mind like autumn leaves on a windy day. I can’t stop as I visit memory after memory.
The years fly by.
Gradually the images slow as does my writing.
These are painful times.
I don’t want to visit those houses, I want to burn them to the ground. Long pent-up anger surfaces and I cry out just one word “Why”.
Why did it have to happen?
Why can’t I change the past? Why didn’t my dreams come true?
I stand, throwing the pen across the room.
With one well aimed blow the pages scatter in a cluttered mess and drift to the floor.
My heart pounding I move to the window and consider my thoughts.
I realize, at this exact moment, I feel more alive than I have in years. I don’t want to let it go.
I walk across the room, pick up the pen then carefully re-stack the pages of my life.
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