Red on 'Clarity'...

To The One I Love...

I have been blessed enough in life to experience a few rare moments of such awesome clarity. While I still have quite the muddy water on the brain, sometimes it's as if a drop of Joy Dish Soap has been dispensed into the deepest part of the ocean that is my very center. I can't say whether it is the time passed that helped me realize my most recent epiphany, or if it's sheer intervention from a greater power. I certainly can't say it's been the hours of in depth pondering, as I have not allowed myself too much time to assess current water conditions. It seems I have a teeny little fear of drowning in said oceans of the brain and these days find that avoidance is a safer place. But alas... I have seen a light at the end of the tunnel. And yes, it IS another train. But it's a train that runs on tracks of intent and design. It is the train that rocked us gently as it brought us over so many hills and safely through so many valleys, carried us across bridges and canyons as far and wide as one can imagine, in so many ways. For so many years and our darkest days.

So as I stood over the sandwich I was making, and I heard the song 'Heaven' come over the radio... I stopped in my oneway hellbound tracks and I listened.

'Oh, thinking about our younger years. There was only you and me, we were young and wild and free. Now nothing can take you away from me. We've been down that road before, but that's over now. You keep me coming back for more. Baby you're all that I want when I'm lying here in your arms. I'm finding it hard to beleive - we're in heaven. And love is all that I need and I found it there in your heart...'

And heaven on earth it was because the clouds parted and everything was shiny and bright in that instant. And I knew... I knew that not only did I WANT to pursue happiness, but I knew it was simply a matter of choosing to do so, and that right there and then I'd decided... I'd let go and given up so many layers of coccoon that I had begun to weave around myself out of sheer habit. And in that moment of beautiful clarity I knew that I did not want to go back to being the person I was before your love touched my life and awoke me from the inside out.

If things don't go the way we planned them, it won't be because of ego, or stubborness, or because I gave up and retreated behind the walls I knew so well for so long before I knew you.

Since you, my life has been full of the greatest joy I've yet known. Not because it makes me so happy everytime you unknowingly prove your love. Not because i'm giddy from the thin air around the pedastal you put me on. But because the sum of what we are together is powerfully positive. And you... just you... make me happy like that. And I now realize that the only reason to revert to my 'safe' and 'comfortable' habits, is because of the same fear that almost kept me from ever letting you love me in the first place. I literally, didn't want to LET you love me. But I gave in then and I give in now. And despite the hills and canyons, we've seen some vistas and sunsets unlike anything we'll ever see alone. And I want to share more of them with you.

Not only am I opening my doors, but i'm getting off this runaway train and I'm hoping onto the one that lets us share the journey together. I wish for no walls to protect me and I do not require safety gear. I'm not going to stand still and watch the train go by - then strain to see where it has gone. Let the road rise up to meet us and what will be will be... we'll face it together.

And while I can not promise anything more than my commitment to the choice to hang onto the person you've helped me be, I hope you know it's a completely different perspective when I sit next to you on the ride. I know that, & I welcome that. And I choose to no longer be afraid that such a beautiful sunset can bust open my overflowing heart. Let the scenery roll by. With you, I am happier than my tears, and stronger than my fears. We won't exactly roll down hill from here and we'll weather many a storm before the clouds stay away for good. I just need you to know that I'm on board.

I Am

I am the smile that was born in dreams of 'I Do'.

I am the joy that runs through my every cell since knowing you.

I am the wisdom of a lifetime lived that has come to know true joy.

I am the lass who dreams of the ladd, the girl who loves the boy.

I am the Winter that wraps around autumn's fall.

I am the hesitant spring, the sultry summer... I have been it all.

I am not the same person that I was so very long ago.

I am not the jaded stone you used to know.

I am not the death that had become my shell.

I am happy, I am in love, and I want to live to tell.

I am not sorrow, nor pitty, nor pain.

I am not going to be found counting tears in the rain.

I am not meek, nor desperate, nor weak.

I am the answer that I know you seek.

I am recovering and beginning to heal.

I am what you helped me become- the me that is real.

I am better than I've ever been.

I am choosing to open back up inside and i'm ready to begin.

I am not peices of the me I was, since having found our love.

I am not a ghost outside and above.

I am here.

I am present.

I am choosing not to begrudge or resent.

I am the love that you gave me.

I am the open door through which you bade me.

I am vulnerable, but I am strong.

I am wanting to want Us.

And I know, for this I am not wrong.

Red 08-09-08