THE ROAD BACK TO ME
Sometimes I find I’ve left myself messages. Breadcrumbs to follow to where I need to go. Apparently it is too scary to go directly from point A to point B so I must leave myself writings, blog posts, or essays, a whole book, stories of before, so that I can find them and read them and know the truth of my life. Know that I am not lost in the middle of nowhere anymore. Know that I have love, give love and live love, the mysterious thing I only dreamed of for so long.
Let me trudge out of the isolation I live in, still, even though to you out there it must look as though I am terribly engaged. I am but I’m not. It is time to share the messages I’ve written to myself. I once put them on the shelf where they collected dust for years, believing it a great exercise to have done the writing at all. Not anything anyone needed to know. But that was a trick. I see now I needed time to catch up in my heart with what I wrote from my head. Leave myself some breadcrumbs to follow. Stories about how I used to be lost in the world, desperate, so I can see that I am not that anymore.
My boy came back from a year away in South America, yesterday. Waiting for him at the airport was like waiting to give birth. I tried to be calm, not make a scene. That’s what he asked for, so okay, but let’s let it be whatever it is. So we waited and watched, grew anxious, and then thrilled at the sight of him, and grabbed him to us in a tight four-way hug all around, all of us together loving each other like I have never known before. Silent. Locked together. In love.
I did it. I created a family that loves out loud, that cares and misses and loves together. I am sure of it because when I laid eyes on him tears burst to my face and I thanked God for the gift of this day. This day where my world is fantastic and joyful and great. I thanked God as the plane landed, that I have made it to this point in my life where I can see the changes in myself, perpetuated forward through my children.
When I read some of my stories I am shocked at what I see. A girl once lost, alone, confused. I left myself these stories so I would have no way of convincing myself it happened any other way. Like somehow I made it all up. Like somehow it wasn’t that bad. Like somehow I didn’t spend a lifetime getting here. Like somehow my stories aren’t important enough to share. Seeing my son come home to us after a year away, us all truly joyful on his return, is a message to myself, a breadcrumb to follow.
I have come from far away and live among others now and can see that my children love me and love me and love me. I am not lost anymore.
