My Life as I Knew It

Not finished... well perhaps if it doesn't go over well.

I feel the pitter patter of the rain on my window more than I hear it. I know how crazy that must seem but it is the same as feeling the pressing weight of silence rather than hearing nothing, for how can you hear what does not exist?

It seems my life is at an impasse, poised on the brink of change; whether on the path to greatness or disaster has yet to be determined. I am at an age where one is expected to have some semblance of who they are yet besides empty words I could describe my character, I do not even know the contents of my soul. I am hollow, unfilled, lacking knowledge, and waiting on something. 

I have spent my life searching for answers and meaning but have come up short. I have let life lead me, and have never taken accountability for my own destiny. I wonder now if I made a grave error. Can one live without knowing their true self?

I listen once more with my soul rather than my ears at the sound of the rain. How apt for this moment. The rain, seen as depressing and sad to some, I see it now as a means to purification. As it pours down from the heavens it washes away the crimes against my true being I have committed. It is a means to renewal, cleansing me, awakening the dormant soul, the fountain of creativity I once knew and have lost. 

I have less than a year to discover myself and I fear if I cannot do it by then I will become but a faded apparition of who I could have been, my potential sucked dry by the passing of time and of life.

The years have passed swiftly, a rise and fall of firsts and of future plans. Our beautiful baby girl was born on a warm autumn night in the middle of a glorious Indian summer. We named her Grace. There was no real reason behind her name but when she opened her gentle eyes of blue and stared into the soul I thought I had nearly lost she graced me in a way I never knew existed. She was my light and my savior. The things I had once believed to be so important drifted into the distance and I became content with my life and watching Grace grow and become an entity unto herself. 

She was stubborn and persistent from the beginning. Her first steps were before she reached a year, determined to not be contained to all fours and make sure either I or my husband Tom were within her sights at all times. She was our world and so she would remain even after life took hold and pushed us each in different directions, though we held onto each other tightly. In retrospect we did this to ensure that we would not have to experience change alone. Change is the beast that sneaks up on you when you least expect it, though it takes a long time to fully capture you in it's grasp and you never realize that it's doing so but once it has you are never the same and you can never take back what was once yours in entirety.

There are days when I look in the mirror and I no longer recognize the woman staring back at me. Time has taken its toll on me, though it has not been unkind, I know it is not just on the outside I see a stranger. When was it that I lost that integral part of myself that made me, well me? This was what I had feared all those years ago before I had my daughter, while marriage was still new, and life had yet to really happen. I had worried then I would lose myself to my life, surrendering my very soul to that of another being. My daughter has grown to be a strong and independent young woman soon to be entering her sixteenth year, her life so full of promise and potential, the life I once had awaiting for me. I do not regret having her for I could not imagine my life without her gentle presence, and sweet laugh. She is all I have now for I no longer have myself, and I no longer have Tom. 

Do not misconstrue my words, Tom and I are still very much married, still inhabit the same bed, and eat at the same dinner table but there is nothing between us; except Grace. I was naive to believe she would always be enough for us, for in the end all children grow into adults and leave their parents and where will that leave us? Alone. Alone, not with each other, but with ourselves, nothing connecting one to the other, the only branch severed. Tom and I were in love once I think, well I know Tom was but the more time that goes by the more I question whether I have ever really felt love. I have had the butterflies, and the lust but have I ever truly experienced unadultered, unrequited love? I think I have not. Perhaps that is the part of me that I feel has never been fulfilled, never been explored, the part of my life that has felt barren. If Tom ever discovered this I think it would break him, which is why it is locked deep inside a part of my mind I have found myself visiting more and more often as of late. 

I want to experience life, and laughter, and true love but is it too late? I am nearing forty, what really is there left for me? What of the world can I experience without tearing my life and those I care for the most apart. Once again I have come to an impasse, however this time there is nothing to derail my thoughts or desires other than myself. Will I become my own worst enemy or will I be my own savior?