Consciousness is a bitch. No two ways about it.
When the grass I thought looked greener fades in comparison to the side I just came from, well, I’m smart enough to turn the hell around and haul ass back. First he’ll take me in his big bear arms, then I’ll remember the day on the Pier, and after that it’s always okay.
This time I think that now is better even, because there are more rooms in the house with long warm limbs and tousled hair that smells like puppies. Four of us in all that make this place the home I always call plenty, enough, and mine.
I promise him that’s not what I was running from. He knows. That itch, it moves me, sometimes to wild places. He loves me for it, and I can’t live without it.
Mostly I find more good. More life. More to love.
Other days I find the green dream I’ve been combing my fingers through has turned brittle in my hands, weightless and vacant. Washed out in contrast to the cool floorboards that creak under the weight of my feet in the morning, at midnight, and every splendid hour in this place. The space that’s ours, that’s safe and home and only for us.
This last shit storm, if I’m being honest, was partly okay. The other part, well, you’ve gotta’ know what you don’t want to know what you want. No two ways about that. The thing about me – I always think I know.
But there are times when I can feel my youth. When I have to turn the hell around and head back to where I came from. When what I thought I wanted turns dry and dangerous under the sharp light of day, and the instinct pinching at the back of my arm makes me snap, fast, back to myself, then fall into him, and snuggle down with the others who make it all okay.
Still, in the back of my mind I hold tight to the thrill, the energy, even the hurt. Maybe I’d take it all on again, someday. A wiser me would do well there, I think. Grace, poise, valor. Maybe it’s in the cards for me. We’ll see.
But that’s not the point here. Not now, or even ever, I might say someday when I’m old and what’s done is done.
The point today is all chickens and fresh baked bread. All bare feet and laughter. All here and now and ours to live, as long as we choose to notice it.
What exactly is it about absence that makes the heart grow fonder? Maybe it’s consciousness.
That sneaky little bitch.
Tags: consciousness, grass is greener, inspirational, love, memoir
