The long way home

...and she stood there, in a spiritual purgatory, caught between a life she thought she knew and the one she had yet to discover.

A sense of detachment from reality, yet never so awake to it.

It’s where darkness collided with joy. Where love was smothered by suffering.

It was sheer panic to discover such fear, insecurity and worthlessness still resided in her, resurrected from the depths of a place within she thought no longer existed. A ghost from the past, she had faced down many times before, but never with such fury.

Her mind misfired, her body shivered and heart ached for relief.

Shoulders weighted with a burden so heavy, it was an effort to simply breathe.

Frozen in fear.

Paralyzed with indecision and not knowing. 

A bag of bones, barely able to carry her own skin.

Fragile and hopeless, sad and begging for mercy from the anguish.

That is the story of how she arrived.

She departed the desert much different, courageously wearing the love she received.

It propped her up.

Pleasantly dusty from her trails, with each step on the red clay, her spirit was renewed. Sun kissed and wind blown, she thanked the desert for its lessons in sanctuary, solitude and serenity.

She went with grace, confident in her will to continue to lead with love, go with gratitude, in a relentless pursuit of self, of innate knowing her heart.

She craved the soothing rhythm of the ocean again, to lay low in the familiar comfort of the salt kindred to her soul.

So she gathered herself and took the next steps like a baby learning to walk for the first time, still unsteady and uncertain. Each step was an act of bravery, not unsupported, but still very much tender.

Because this path was hers alone, back to her home.

Not the one made of wood and nails, but the one that beats within her and nourishes her being in a way no one and nothing else can.

She knocked on the door of her heart, weary and worried she may no longer be welcome. Her heart said, you are always welcome here.

She can still see her footprints from that divine journey. She believes she always will, but she knows she’ll never stray so far from home again.

Her heart is her greatest asset and it must be protected at all costs.

If you see her, don’t look for the miles, the age in her eyes, or the triumph in her smile - look to her heart... it tells her story, her ragged and beautiful truths.

It is her home. It is only love.