THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK:

And so I learned to mistrust my instincts. I chose him. I chose to believe in him and the past and not in myself. This was my biggest mistake. And I made it over and over again.

When I told him I knew everything, he collapsed like a cornered animal. I looked at him down there on the ground waiting — it was as if he had thrust a bloody dagger in my hand and was suddenly giving me some kind of power. 'But you’ve already killed me', I thought. What am I supposed to do with this?

I met with her one cloudy afternoon by the lake. Because I had a painful appetite for details. Because I wanted to be a player in this drama. She was nervous and couldn’t look me in the eye. I wanted to know dates, places and, most importantly, was she in love with him? “Yes,” she said. I asked if she thought he was in love with her. “I think so,” she said. (I wonder why she thought that?)

I wanted a better life. I needed to start making some different choices. My whole life I have been scared of not being seen, not being loved, not being enough — scared of getting old, of death, of gravity, of disapproval, of shame, of my own body. I was scared of this betrayal. I was the most desperate person in the lineup for love. It is my best kept secret.

Caterpillars spin themselves into a cocoon and undergo a miraculous transformation. From blindly inching along the ground, they turn into light-seeking winged creatures, so drawn to the light that they often go up in a brilliant blaze from flying too close to a flame.

The Woman in the Mirror... "She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflection of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”

I have come to this place in the river of my life and there is no turning back. It’s a universal law. Loss is etched in the body and if I am lucky enough to stay afloat, it is the deep red and blue threads in the tapestry of my heart. At worst, loss could rip me away from my moment in time and drown me. I have decided to go with the flow.

I feel this way about the loss of my love. I still carry sorrow–like a backpack of stones on my back. But now, years later, it is not weighing me down– it has become a part of me. I am no longer a victim. I see that I am only a woman who is living her life in all its fury and exhilaration. I have found my freedom–my own paradise; and it is freedom to choose.