Comes the Dawn-December 12, 2005

"After a While"

After a while you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul.

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company isn't security.

(Kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises.)

After a while you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open,

with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build your roads on today

because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain

and the inevitable has a way of crumbling in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns

if you stand too long in one place.

So, you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.

And you learn you really can endure,

that you really do have worth.

You learn that with every good-bye comes the dawn."

By Veronica Shofftall or Judith B. Evans or Unknown for Certain

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The last few years of my life have been full of changes, challenges and choices. Not all of them have been positive, but when one stops to reflect...would we really want them to be? If we're smart we take each situation, take responsibility for our actions and decisions and then either learn from the outcome or revel it in. We only grow old when we stop moving foward and expanding our lives and experiences. Each time we don't take a chance or leap of faith into the unknown, I think a part of our soul withers and we can't get it back again. We only get the opportunity to travel most roads once with the same influences affecting the journey...occasionally we backtrack, but it's never the same as the original path we first came upon....there will be nuances that are different.

I've enjoyed the discovery of myself the past few years (for the most part) and know there are so many more changes ahead that I have waiting for me if I am courageous enough to face them and embrace them...hopefully mostly with common sense, but occasionally just throwing caution to the wind...to let fate take over and find unexpected gems along the way. Every person that enters your life does so for a reason...learn to take a chance. Even if that person turns out to be a stepping stone rather than a permanent pathway, the journey itself is valuable and essential to life...and we can never bemoan or wonder about what might have been or a path left unexplored.


Kat