ALL OF A SUDDEN AND SUDDENLY… 

 

You realize that the pain in your chest is not your heart stopping, it’s your heart starting - apparently for the first time in a long time. The poor thing’s a muscle and like any muscle, if you don’t use it, you lose it and when you crank it up again it hurts. Not a bad hurt like a brine-filled paper cut, but a curious hurt like gently tounging the mischievous space of a freshly pulled tooth. 

It’s the pang of the mornings’ first stretch and knowing that the job’s not done till you hear a few pops and crackles. 

It’s the quiet space that you find when you look into yourself as if you were a lover looking into the eyes of your lover and realizing that you want you just the way you are. 

You will grow three sizes that day. 
You will get stretch marks on your heart.
Your food will taste better. 
Your water will be sweeter.
You will laugh harder.
You will answer the voices in your head out loud and not care.
You will sleep warm like the unsuspecting infant nestled sweetly between mothers’ eternal hopes and dreams.

You will learn that you will stretch but will not snap, not really.
You will learn that you will bend but will not break, not really.
You will learn that you will love and not be lost, not really

And you will have stretch marks everywhere important. 

You will learn that the sky is always blue once you get above the clouds. 
You will learn that sometimes the most bitter herb makes for the best medicine. 
You will learn that sometimes it’s ok not to understand everything.

And if you listen – really listen – people will tell you everything they want you and don’t want you to know about them. 

You will learn that sometimes it’s ok to love someone that you will never tell. 
—I mean, madly love someone you will never tell – 
You will learn that sometimes it’s ok to hate someone and never tell. 
Sometimes, it’s ok to let things go.
Sometimes, we don’t know the right thing to do, and it’s ok. 
Sometimes, there is no right or wrong thing to do and that’s ok, too.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing. 
Sometimes, it’s impossible to fail.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is that “thing” – even if you know you will fail. 
Sometimes, it’s best to fail. 
Sometimes, it’s good to risk the win.
Sometimes, it’s best to win.
But, sometimes it’s good to fail, too. 
It’s better to love at all costs; In little ways, at least. 


The stretch marks will indicate all your future answers. 

Amen, Amen, Amen.

 

Pulished by The-Five-Hundred.com July 2013 (C) Sheryland Neal