Last year at this time I was pining for that blue.eyed boy. Confused, and after such a tantalizing embrace shared Christmas Day, angry at, AGAIN, feeling foolish and betrayed. But all that is well behind me today.

Yet, this year also offered hot flash hell fueled days and nights, and many falls, bruised and battered knees and broken bones, alongside my foolish heart.

But all that is behind me.

With summer days spent in solitude, and others with friends, I began to mend. And dream.

Lost in WHAT IF’s underneath that Black Walnut Tree, I dreamed of, and longed for better days I knew had to lie ahead.

I learned though Mom that those better days don’t come to you like rain on a hot summer day. Atleast not as easy, and not as sure. First, I decided to unwind my mind from where I thought it should be, and stare off into the distance at WHAT IF.

I examined it from all sides, and than I left it all behind on the road, and threw caution to the wind, and ran after WHAT IF.

Today I sit here, with sore feet from the journey it took me on, and unsure of what comes next, but I walk beside WHAT IF now. It is a friend. I ask it for advice. I thank it for its patience.

As it had always been there, just ahead of me, waiting.

But this is just the beginning of our journey.

As I waded through grief, and loss, and danced with the ghosts of the past. As I gathered my tears, and boiled them in the kettle for tea, to comfort me. As I languished in the past, tripping over memories, I longed to walk beside WHAT IF.

But I didn’t know how.

It’s hard you know, Mom, to find that courage to go against the grain. Yet the grain was a mirage, a confab of my imagination. It was just a plastic facsimile of wood, a fake, bought at Wal-Mart.

The year will end, and I will spend it alone, by my own choice. I recognize the snake in my bed that I pitied, was merely waiting to eat me alive. No more.

So the minutes tick away the close of this year. So the journey, as I said, has just begun. So I don’t know where I’m going, and I don’t care as much as I did.

I don’t long for that which is no longer mine. I don’t wait, holding myself back, gazing longingly at WHAT IF.

Each day I set my daily tasks “walk the dog, do the dishes, wash the floor” etc… and that is all. I am challenged at work, and at peace within my home.

What more could I want?

Ah, but WHAT IF is a silent one, and even so I know more awaits. So I plod along at its side, sure in the knowledge its all a matter of time, and patience. If WHAT IF can wait for me, than I can await the journey that I know lies ahead.

WHAT IF, thank you.

Love,