//|\\ michelle harris \\|//
The Awakening
Isn't is odd? The way that a single moment in time can change the way we view our lives forever? I'm sure you've had moments like these. Think back. Your first kiss, your first love, the first time that you looked into the wizened eyes of your own child.. I can say this with confidence because these are my moments also. These and many more, both good and bad. Some still bright in my mind and heart, others, so distant, they could easily be the memories of someone else. Those instances when life as I knew it was suddenly metamorphed in a way that changed my entire outlook. Some of these changes were instantaneous, others took years to achieve the same effect. Periods of time when I fell dormant the changes around me, only to be rudely and inexplicably awakened. Confused and disoriented, but finally awake. I'm getting ahead of myself, this is something that I tend to do. So be patient and I'll take you on a journey through my memories back to the beginning. To love and be loved. That was my dream. A common dream, I'm sure. Shared with countless others. It was a dream that was, at the same time, selfish and selfless. Dreams are, in their most basic concepts, strange and selfish things. They change and grow, that is their beauty. When one dream is reached, they simply turn their face in a new direction, toward that which is barely beyond our grasp. Never satisfied with what is, only concerned with what could be. So that if you are unable to change and grow with them, they leave you. Try to hold on to a dream past its time and you hold a nightmare. I held a nightmare for seven years, not even knowing until I awoke. Like Rip Van Wrinkle reincarnate, I fell asleep as one person, awoke to someone else. Like a glance in a mirror that reflects a stranger, I had lost myself, my identity. The continuity of everyday life, regardless of the horrors therein, provides a sort of comfort in a perverted sense. Fear of what is known and expected is nothing compared to fear of the unknown. To walk away from all that is familiar takes much greater courage than I believed myself to have. The years of unfulfilled promises, gratuitous dedication and one sided devotion had taken their toll. Sucking the very essence from me until I had become a numb shell of a human, simply going through the motions of like, barely able to recall the dreams I once had. Everyone has a breaking point. That one, seemingly insignificant event, that snaps you out of your delusional reverie. Something as simple as a dog barking in the middle of the night can bring this on this life altering state. When you suddenly see with startling clarity the choices you must make. Mine was a hand print. A single, angry, red hand print. Not on me, but on my child. The surprise on her face reflected the shock on mine. In that moment, all the wasted years, the pain, the regret, faded away. All I could see was the hand print. My mind drifted back to the person I was so long ago, the person I had hoped to become and compared it to the stranger that now inhabited my body. Where do our dreams go when we release them? Do they still linger nearby, waiting patiently for the day when we are able to reclaim them? Perhaps it would be prudent to consider them lost forever so that we can start anew? These are questions that you must find your own answers to. I am still searching for mine. In the meantime, I have found a new dream. I will nurture it deep within my heart. I find myself on the dawn of a new day. The world seems brighter than before, somehow more alive. Yesterday is gone, but I know that it will return to me in the nights to come. When doubts haunt my dreams and worries trouble my mind. I hope that the scars on my soul will fade over time, I hope that I can someday learn to forgive myself, I hope that I have made the right choice, but most importantly, for the first time in a long time, I have hope.