Paths

I woke up in a solemn mood today. Don't know why, maybe my dreams were solemn. I've been quieter than normal, even Dad has noticed. I've been concentrating on my projects today and there are more than one that are rather tricky. While my printer is busy working, I thought I would write out some of my solemnness.

Ran into a good friend--Cindy I haven't seen since spring. I was coming out of the bakery with coffee and she was going in. We stood outside and chatted for a good 15 mins. Catching up and such...I didn't have a lot of news to share. When I told her about my poetry book being published she said she knew about it...that Allen had told her. I guess my facial expression flickered a look of shock before I could control it because she put her hand on my arm. She then proceeded to explain where she saw him and so on... its not important so I'm not going to write it here. She ran into him and the conversation was mainly about me. That I'm not surprised about.

What surprised me was that he remembered I had a book coming out! While we were together he never remembered anything I told him about myself. I know it had to do with his being drunk or drinking during the times I spilled my soul to him. Allen always told me the same old stories and I knew them by heart--but that's because I was sober and could remember them. When I would tell him something for the 10th time, it was new.

I'll never forget our last Christmas together...how I really hoped he would be able to make the changes I needed so that we could still be together...but he proved he couldn't and never would when we were decorating his little tree and the movie A Fish Called Wanda came on. I remember laughing and saying...how I love Monty Python. He looked surpried and said, "You like Monty Python? I do too. Wow, I didn't know that. I love how I learn something new about you every day." I remember looking at him and feeling more of our foundation crumbling under my feet. I had told him that four years before how I loved Monty Python and probably told him 20 times during those four years together. To him, I would always be new and exciting....to me, he wouldn't. I knew all his stories by heart and that broke my heart, because he would never know mine.

And here he goes and remembers something important to me.

Cindy said I should give him another chance. That maybe this time we would be on the same path. I smiled at her politely as I shook my head. I had changed too much. There was no going back. We hugged and went separate ways.

But she's got me to thinking about paths. Isn't life a path? And everything about it on a path of some sort? Our body is made up of veins and arteries where blood travels constantly, of brain waves traveling via our nervous system, oh I could go on but I wont'---you get the picture. Our thoughts travel. Our communications do too... paths ... all around us.

Love and relationships are on paths too--a constant travel. From day one, a person starts their journey. As they grow, they encounter people along the way--some just passing and some traveling down the same road. But often that journey is limited, because of all the detours and hidden paths along the way. Oh think of what's ahead and all the possibilites, so many wonderful roads to chose I think. Thinking like this gives me hope, but I'm realistic too.

For example, look at the road I traveled with Allen. We met in a whirlwind of music and dance. It lit up our separate paths with electric blue light, so bright I'm amazed we could see that were were at a cross road, and chosing the same path. For a while, the journey together was bright. We found newness in flowers and song. When a pothole appeared, we managed to pull each other out of them. But after a while a shift occurred, I began to watch for potholes and Al didn't. He fell into them time and time again, even when I pointed them out. The view we enjoyed became lost, as we concentrated on pulling him out of everyhole in the road. That's no way to travel. He pulled me down with him in the end. I couldn't let my soul sink and die there with him. So I made a conscious choice to take a different path. Poor Allen is still on the old path, looking back at our footsteps.

The road I'm on now hasn't been easy. Much of it, I've been alone on, though I do have occasion moments were I find friends along the way who are there with me...some of our paths parallel and we smile and share the same views. But its been a long time it seems that I've had someone to hold my hand as I walk along my path--someone who touches my soul and makes the flowers before me bloom in shades that I could never create alone. And I'm okay with this...okay with the road before me. Yes there are still potholes there, but I find ways to miss them...maybe because I'm not looking so far ahead down the path. I'm enjoying each step I take, each flower and bird that flies by and I can't think of a better path to be traveling on, even if I'm alone.