Prologue
Reflection, especially personal, occurs best when looking at the big picture. Something greater than yourself. I ponder this revelation as I push against the wooden decking while looking out at the ocean. A frothy white foam takes a solid form at the water’s edge as the smooth back and forth rocking motion gently sways my chair. I brace myself against the sudden chill in the air by wrapping my favorite blanket around my shoulders. Its threads are filled with memories of days past and love experienced. I brought the blanket outside with me because I had anticipated a change in temperature. The ocean has a different type of chill to the air, but I have always preferred to live by the sea. I’ve gone through countless seasons along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. As I rock, I recall how so many of my troubles and thoughts have been sorted and worked out in this very spot. Recollections reside amid so many memories. Most are good, some not so, but there is one thing that they have shown me: being near the sea clears my mind and soothes my soul. Today I am thinking about them all. The memories that are bordered with fringes of happiness glide easily through my thoughts, while those that are hurtful and challenging snag painfully on my heart. They unravel as they tug at the scars of sorrow left in their wake. I suppose that the good and bad have balanced out because I’m still breathing.
I look at the waves of blue to regain perspective. How can I not marvel at the majestic scene before me? The sun breaks through the clouds for a moment and the dark water is instantly transformed by the light shining down from above. It’s as though the waves are graced with a fragile silver thread. Like a beautiful necklace, it appears on the surface swaying with the saltwater curves. A gift from the heavens above. How simple and how profound. The sun kisses; the water receives. It is proof that when two treasures combine, the result is something so perfect and surreal that it surpasses human comprehension. A sweet reminder that when two people join their hearts together, the result can be amazing.
Tears fill my eyes as the sudden remembrance of being part of a pair pierces my soul. Thinking back, I realize that I was fortunate and blessed to have shared my heart with someone who gave back to me in equal measure. I was loved. The experience filled me and broke me, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t be who I am today without it.
Without love.
As I reminisce, my palm slides over the arm of the worn green paint on the Adirondack rocking chair. I habitually caress the wood in strokes of equal measure. How many times have I repeated the task to the metronome in my head? How many times have my fingertips lingered with long strokes over the lines and divots in the wood? Hundreds? Thousands? No matter. The solace I find in the repetitive coddling motion more than outweighs the repetition of the task. I obsessively run my palm in circles over the message carved into the wood beneath my hand. The action anchors me, reminding me that I was tethered to the heart of someone worthy. His love was all that I had needed, but love couldn’t survive without courage. Now, as a woman who has survived for so many years, I can only hope to be remembered as an example of the word I scratched into my rocking chair long ago. My life, my loves, and the strength I have gleaned from those experiences are all that I have to show of my existence. Would anyone want to know my story? Would someone care enough to share that love—real love—is worth all the risks you must take to obtain it? If only.
A smile crosses my lips as I recall how I’ve lived my life in stages, but not all in the order that they should have occurred. Most people use their younger years to fill selfish needs and employ their later ones to meet the needs of others. I consider myself odd because I had reversed them. As a young woman, I had found a satisfactory pleasure in pouring out as much of myself as possible to those who needed it. All of the people in my life—family, friends, and clients—were more than happy to be on the receiving end of my giving nature. But I didn’t exercise wisdom. I gave away too much of myself and found that my energy was depleted by the end of the day. Generosity wasn’t always reciprocated, which led me to the harsh discovery that life isn’t fair and life lessons can be bitter. After learning too many times what it felt like to be used, I found myself hoarding my emotions. My tank had been full, but the cruelties of life had depleted it at too young of an age. I’ve made many mistakes. Among them, I learned that too often I gave credit where it was not due, forgave those that were unforgivable, and excused actions that should have been inexcusable. All of this I did to gift myself a bit of peace, but forgiveness at this age is in short supply. I now know not to waste time on those whose motives are self-serving. I’m older. I should be wiser.
Yet I do count myself somewhat lucky. Time, tempered with the refinement of grace, has taught me invaluable lessons. I have grown beneath the light of having been loved and cared for. I have flourished while being held tightly in someone’s arms. I have also learned that I am a better person for having paid attention to those who would hurt me. The opportunists. Those that spoke soft, caring words, all while carrying out their selfish agendas. Those with an invisible knife at my back. The lesson I learned from dealing with those people is that now I don’t trust easily. If you have a giving heart, as I once did, you quickly discover the brutality of people crossing any boundary to serve their own purpose. They are the bastards who twisted my heart until there was nothing left but a cynical lump of muscle in my chest. My thoughts anger me and I push the heel of my hand into the carved letters beneath it. Maybe the force will imprint the word on my skin. As much as I wish it would, I still do not possess all of the traits that the simple word implies.
I continue rocking as the clouds part and rays of sunshine pour over me. The heat warms me despite the cool breeze and I feel an infusion of energy course through my veins. A sensation of freedom occurs, nearly identical to that on the day that I decided to let one small word become my mantra. If I had been able to, I would have carved it into my skin to intermingle its definition with my blood. I remember the desperation that I felt on that day, but I had feared that I wouldn’t do it right. The very idea of self-inflicted wounds was not something I relished. That day and those thoughts had been my breaking point. Emotional pain had overshadowed the physical. Despondency had blanketed and suffocated me, while heartbreak had rendered me useless. I had cried until I made myself numb, and in the silence, I heard one word. It started as a whisper and got louder as it looped repeatedly. I reached for it, hooked my fingers through it, and grabbed it tightly within my fists. How could language do that? How could one word among thousands give hope to a desperate heart? How much power could one word yield that its definition could make you choose life or death?
I held onto the hope that those few letters promised and carved the word into my chair that day, wondering if it was akin to tattooing flesh on bone. I contemplated my thoughts and actions as I concentrated on the task at hand. As tears of hope fell from my eyes, they comingled with the tiny shavings. The word became mine. It no longer belonged to the masses. It was my new mindset. Should I forget what it meant, all I had to do was flip through the pages of the dictionary to remind me of the dark and light places where I had traveled both physically and mentally. It was my mission, as well as my compass. The embodiment of where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be. When I had finished my task, I realized exactly what that word was.
It was the definition of me.