Evolving 101

A fire in me has been burning since the day I was born, and I've been actively fueling its flames my whole life since. Only then is it worth living--when there's never a dull moment--and I've often cashed in my peace of mind for the aliveness I feel with a broken heart. I would not call myself a drama queen, because there's nothing superficial about what I crave. The intensity I seek travels though me, igniting passion, euphoria and fear, then as all energy does, it shifts, moves and rests.

I've been running toward intensity since I was a little girl, and for the past three years I've been running from the kind of quiet I feel this morning. It's vacant, unsettling and uncomfortable, accompanied by a knowing that in this unfamiliar state of existence, lies answers.

I used to think if I stepped on the bathroom scale and saw the magic number, I'd be free. I thought if I had a big kitchen to cook in, I'd be free. I thought if I only knew for certain he loved me, I'd be free.

But I got on the scale this morning and saw the magic number, I scrambled eggs in my big kitchen, and I've long since known that I am loved. So where is the party, the little girl in me wants to know. Where are the spontaneous love songs, the job offers, the holding hands on a plane to Bora Bora?

Life is no bed of roses, no walk in the park, no easy feat and there are no guarantees. But I live for those sweet moments of peace, when my love is inspired only by me, and flows freely to you, her and him. When the baritone sax sounds like what it must sound like to eat a delicious invisible cloud, when my child's embrace stops me in my tracks, her fingertips leaving delicate, permanent imprints on my skin. When his voice drops low and he says the exact, perfect right thing.

Life is a bowl of cherries, a day at the beach, it's what you create and what you leave alone. It's also joylessness, loneliness, disappointment and fear, and him not always saying the exact, perfect right thing.

But this morning I am one step closer than I was. I don't have to fuel my own fire or calm my own storm, I don't have to turn lemons into lemonade. I won't follow a recipe to prepare future plans like an anticipated meal--I can love what is and want what I've got, and find the joy in joylessness, and in the wonder of it all.