moments

The latch clicked shut. Overcome with the crushing weight of sorrow, she looked for a way out of it and found it through the bathroom door and tears. Sitting on the linoleum floor, in secrecy she cried. She never felt she could cry in front of anyone. For her it always represented weakness, and she could never let on that she was vulnerable. To feel vulnerable was to feel shaken, exposed. Someone could take advantage of you if you were vulnerable. It had happened to her too many times, and after each blow she became tougher. Now her shell was strong, many layers of hardened varnish built up to protect the tender heart encased within. But in the secrecy of her tiny bathroom, in the comforting embrace of darkness, she could weep. Oh, but how it hurt to cry like that. It hurt so much.
P A I N

She was singing. Her voice was never spectacular, but it was never about the quality of her vocal cords. Singing is more than hitting all the notes. When she sang she could express something pent up within her, something that no words can tell of, an unnameable passion. When she sang, a piece of her was escaping, soaring and free. She could communicate this way, things she would never say in normal conversation or everyday chit-chat. Somehow the singer and the song and the listeners were being knit together, woven into a tapestry that has been in the making since the beginning. She felt at peace, she felt at home. The joy of the moment pulsed through her and it felt so… perfect.
J O Y

She sat on her daddy’s knee. Her daddy always wore blue jeans, and most of them had holes in the knees. But she always liked that, though she couldn’t say why. Before bed, they liked to rock in her daddy’s rocking chair. She loved to sit there with him, on his knee in their favorite chair. They would sit together and watch baseball games and M.A.S.H. and Taxi, but it never mattered what was on the television. It only mattered that she was here with him and everything was right, as it should be. She was happy and she was safe.
P E A C E

She used to love looking into his eyes. In his eyes she saw a reflection of herself, someone she liked. Not the boring, quiet girl most people saw, but someone with a spark, someone special. That’s how she used to feel with him. But now when she looked into those eyes, she saw contempt. The words from his lips were no longer soothing and comforting, but hard and cutting and cruel. She tried to pretend that look wasn’t there, she tried to pretend he wasn’t cheating, but she was never any good at pretending. Eventually she realized he hated her, and she began to hate him back.
B E T R A Y A L

It never mattered anyway. Nothing anyone thought was important really made any difference at all. So what if her parents split? Happens all the time. So what if she was living with him? Everybody does that. It doesn’t matter. So what if she dropped out of school? She was doing just fine. Who cares if she didn’t believe in God? He’s just a fairy tale anyway, a made up image that people have to make themselves feel better.
A P A T H Y

Lying in bed, facing the dawn of a new day and these same thoughts and feelings rolling over her again and again… She can’t shake the loneliness. She walks through the halls of her empty home and wishes he were still here. But he isn’t here, and he isn’t coming back. She is so afraid to step outside her door. Murmuring voices and eyes bearing down on her, that’s all she felt when she left the seclusion of her familiar apartment. Why did they seem so alienated by her? She could only reason that she was too full of pain, and her pain escaped through the keyhole of a door that remained locked within her. And though she tried to hold the pain in, it kept trickling out and no one could figure out how to help her.
D E S P A I R

Looking over her shoulder at a decade rolling away, she found she felt grateful. Some people look into their past and regret things they’ve done or things that cannot be undone, others feel proud of their accomplishments, and some look back and see a haze and shake their head to clear the fog. But she felt grateful because she could again live with hope. Hope is a wonderful thing, something to live for. Hope touches your door and ushers in a gentle breeze, stirring forgotten dreams and awakening things long asleep.
H O P E

There are so many moments in time that make up a person. Pain, joy, peace, betrayal, apathy, the agony of despair and the elevation of hope. Our lives are one long string of moments…

Eccl. 11:7-8 Truly the light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun; but if a man lives many years and rejoices in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. All that is coming is vanity.