Safety

My whole life I’ve had unsteady homes and irresponsible parenting. I grew up afraid of being made fun of because I was constantly being tossed between my mother and father. They didn’t have money to buy me the clothes that the popular crowd had. They barely had money for food. My father spent his money on drugs and my mother just didn’t care to work. This sent me into a constant sense of panic around people and the probability of not being accepted. It’s always been important to me to have a safe place to go and I didn’t always have that. For me, a safe place that I can always disappear to is not an actual place. In fact, this place is somewhere I can go no matter where I happen to be. All I have to do is close my eyes and I’m transported to the salty mist beach, with the wind mixing into my hair, creating a messy tangle of locks. My dress stretches behind me creating the illusion of waves. I wear no makeup, but my blue eyes pop all the same. In this moment, I am as breathtaking as the moon's reflection on the water. I feel beautiful down to my core. The laughter of my best friends, Jake and Sarah, floats back to me while I walk shoulder to shoulder with Matt. They comfort me and I can see that everyone feels at home here in this place I’ve created. We watch the shadows as they captivate us with their dance. There's something beautifully mysterious about the way the dark conceals the bad. It’s almost as if the shadows are taking away the negative, allowing the moon to awaken the positive. We feel immortal, our skin glowing luminescent in it's pale light. It’s like something out of our favorite book or movie. Right now I expect slow motion to start as we dance on the beach allowing the joy of night and freedom encircle us. Everything and everyone belong as one; the splashing sound of water as our feet disrupt the calmness and the way we walk hand in hand, without a care in the world. We belong here as our creative selves because this is my world. This is the place that I am completely content because I can want someone to hold me, to tell me that everything's alright. I can tell someone to leave me alone and they’ll understand my fear of crowds. I can need them to make me feel beautiful and make me laugh through my tears. I can want all of that and have the most important things be laughter and happiness. That’s what happens here, where my mind runs free. It creates a beautiful fantasy where I'm allowed to feel infinite. I open my eyes with a feeling calm, relaxation and more importantly, safety.