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Prologue
Life, even in its most terrifying moments, has such beauty to offer. I’d prayed a thousand times for the strength to enjoy every minute of my life—even the hardest ones—but could never see past the pain. Fear would shut me down. Ice would flood my chest and freeze the tears in my eyes. Those precious minutes would slip by without registering, forever lost in a hazy blur. Then, finally, when it was most inconvenient and unexpected, a moment of pure clarity slammed home and thawed my senses. It had been raining. Cool, steel -gray clouds had been roiling across the sky for hours, opening up and crashing down on the earth in random increments. My body had been aching with dreaded anticipation—physical pain building beneath the bridge of my nose, drawing a straight line across my forehead to my temples, creeping around the back of my neck and shoulders, and down my spine. My feet were heavy, my chest tight. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, or focus, or think of tomorrow. Even a nice, chilled pinot grigio straight from the bottle couldn’t calm my nerves as I waited, and paced, and chain-smoked until my throat was completely raw. My life was falling apart. A year before, I thought I had everything I needed to make life good—a love that wouldn’t quit, a decent job that I didn’t like but that got me by, good friends and family, and a comfortable home that wasn’t quite the white picket fence but would do. Then disaster struck, and it all began to shift and change. A deep-seeded longing pumped through my veins and began to define me, despite my best efforts to thwart it. It’s impossible to shove every unpleasant moment and thought into a box and not expect it to eventually explode. Mine wasn’t a small outburst. It was more like a mushroom cloud that lingered and hung over every aspect of my being, poisoning everything and everyone around me. Some people might call it a quarter-life crisis. I prefer to think of it as realization dawning that I am who I am and I’ll never be anybody else. I lost the job. I lost some friends. And I changed so much that my relationship suffered until we fell out of love with each other. I can still see her in the low light of our living room, sitting on the couch with me, her hazel eyes misty and beautiful as I said, “I don’t think we can reconcile our differences,” and how she took a deep breath and nodded, slowly, sighing—part in relief that I finally had the courage to say it, part in agonized discovery that it was truly over. The way she looked at me as we dared to open up and say the things we’d been holding back for fear of rocking the relationship that had already withered and died was one of those terrible, hard moments in life that I could finally appreciate for being so powerfully beautiful. The inner strength shining from those eyes nearly brought me to my knees with gratitude for having been granted one of my deepest desires. Even if it hurt like hell and filled me with unbearable disappointment and regret. I will never forget that look, or the way the room smelled of incense, the sound of the prattling rain against the windows, and how shaky her voice was as she tried to be strong for us both while I wept uncontrollably. To say it was just another one of those eye-opening moments would be a horrible understatement. Chapter 1 Feedback? E-mail me at kimberlylafontaine@yahoo.com. |