Emotions get the best of me. I try and walk the straight and narrow. I dump all caution to the wind and wonder why I struggle in this muck I bring upon myself. I may never learn.

I am in an in-between stage. Is this puberty? My writing does not seem to improve with age but I get a few comments, now and then, telling me to keep going. Do not give up! Your star is hanging low and if you reach a little higher you might just grab and tame the light. They tell me to keep it in my pocket for dark days… for they will come.

I fight this feeling to let go. I am sure you have read plenty of posts where I was ready to hang up this blog. Then I realize you never get everything you want (except from my husband and kids…oh! they spoil me) along the way but you will get what you need. Right? I think someone else said this and the tune is humming in the back of my mind. A good reminder that it takes mental stamina, endless loneliness, determined effort and possibly a bit of luck. Although, not sure about the luck. But being in the right place at the right time might just give me the boost I need to believe in my self. Again. After all, I was cheered on to write in my youth by the person who kept me hidden for my own good. Unfortunately, I am a sponge, easily squeezed of life.

I think it would have been better for me had she let me go. Find heart ache. I never experienced true heart ache, married to the first guy who ever paid attention to me. Living a fairy tale dream of a man on a white horse, destined to save me from hell’s eternity. Thirty years this July. And no it has not been a cake walk. The past few years have been most difficult dealing with a depressed and anxious teenager on the brink of suicide.

All this changed when a stranger saw something inside my heart that was seeping out in trickles, through words strung like pearls. I reached out, secretly, but I could not give what this person needed and we both abandoned ship, feeling used… I am a bleeding romantic. My life is lived 90% in my dreams. Not so much the other person. Unfortunately, I am easily netted and cannot shake the ties that bind my feelings to a blank screen that feeds me nothing.

So I go forward today. All hope enclosed within. I will try and keep writing, no matter the pain it brings. The tears produced. The sweat induced. This sorrow I will carry in my heart as people enter my life and exit through my pores, leaving behind an essence I try and capture for future days. Days when loneliness is too much to bear and I whisper into the wind, waiting for someone to hear.

Part of my being is to be completely understanding even if I am left pained. Self-inflicted wounds are a familiar feeling. I easily act upon my fragile heart. This is a side of me I rarely, if ever before today, have confessed. I assume it makes people comfortable. It leaves me wounded. I can rage like a trapped bear. Other times I whimper like a captured mouse in a exercise wheel. Run through my thoughts, unending. Getting no where, fast!

I will never change this piece of me. It is what makes me the most proud. To say I have sat with the hurting and have tried to bring a smile to their face. For this I will never apologize to myself. For this I will pass away and glow for future people to know that it is not things we possess but the essence of others. I venture forward, in hopes I can become a star, guiding paths with wisdom and grace.

To future hearts.

Happy writing, J