I know a story about a girl who didn't feel loved growing up. She felt like a bother to her mother, and her father, although loving, was busy working much of the time. She didn't quite fit in and spent many hours up in a tree reading. She may not have known everything, but she definitely had a keen sense about her and she figured out how life worked at an early age. It's a strange thing to live in a young girls body, but think with a mind and feel with a heart that probably extends beyond the world of some adults.
As the girl grew to be a young woman she felt a yearning and void in her life to matter to someone. Her overly critical mind had a list of rules to live by, although they were summarized in theory only. Because the rules and remembered voices often exercised harsh and arbitrary authority, her decisions were not always her own. It would have benefited her greatly if she had been taught and encouraged to live from her heart. But, such as it was, she often chose in a manner that befit a means to an end.
Slowly, without even realizing that it had happened she began to notice small cracks that led to empty spaces in her heart. It reminded her of walking down the damp, slick wooden steps to her grandmother's cellar. The darkness of those empty spaces felt like the dozen steps it took to reach the string hanging from the naked light bulb in the middle of the cellar. It swallowed her. It was darker and deeper than layers of scribbled black crayon on construction paper.
She began searching. The journey was long (she still searches today) and often painful. The map she had been given was very faded and it was often impossible to read. She had a strange 'knowing' that love must be the glue that would seep into those empty places and mend the cracks. Love might be the light in the middle of the cellar.
Her travels led her through backseats of cars on lonely country roads. Probing wants and needs traded placed with probing tongues and exploring fingers. The more present sad realization is that she often caught glances of the fulfillment of her desire, but she was so intent on the search that she missed the moment. After a while she didn't feel like she even deserved to dream.
Decades have raced by and the desire has faded. Love has often eluded her and she has paid a high price to find out what she doesn't want. I think that maybe she is just scared of the truth; that maybe love is more than just a fleeting moment or an elusive dream.
I often sit in the quiet of the night and whisper hopes that my heart and body will find a place to call home.
Saturday, June 19, 2004
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1 comment:
thank you.
as I was reading I found that there was one more than one which could put up on a wall in your living room maybe, and when you get by you will nod everytime to the trueness of this sentence. Such are rare and you had several in your text. It's funny because I think you will never read this, but I'm still doing this.
My heart goes out to you.
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