She often looks back and wonders when and how her life ended up like this.  As if there will be one glaring and obvious moment that changed it all.  Knowing full well that the truth is that she changes everyday, that we all do. 

She is a well-educated and intelligent woman.  And yet, she will not give up on the most unrealistic and fictional dream of them all.  She is smarter than she is allowing herself to be, but this is due entirely to the size and functionality of her heart.  She knows full well that her heart is not her emotional center (or anyone's for that matter), that this is merely a symbol and long-standing fiction.  But she does not give up.  She can't.  Because her heart hurts, and she cannot for the life of her figure out why.

She lives an honest life.  She works a 9 to 5 job, and in her own little way she does what she has always wished she could do, she changes the world.  She pays her bills, and cares for her dog, and she loves him.  And yet something is missing, something more than she has always known was not there.  She has lost a lot, but none of those losses explain the overwhelming sense of emptiness, of incompleteness anymore.  She has moved on and she has forgiven many, let go of so much anger and so much regret.  And yet she feels the pangs, the reverberations of the past.

She said once that she was a completer, that she was someone that made others whole.  She sees now that she may have gotten some of that wrong.  She lost...loses... pieces, so many pieces, along the way.  She lives on inside of their souls, those incomplete and broken souls.  And now as time passes she understands the price that she must pay for this.  The completer is both a blessing and a curse.  For she feels their pain, their loss, their regret and vengeance each second of each day.  And it has changed her, slowly, one soul at a time.

Looking back she cannot see it, the moment it all changed, for it never happened all at once.  It just was, and is, and will be. (Forever and) Always.  She feels for them, instead of them, so they don't have to.

So maybe she's not broken, or empty, or lonely.  She feels all of this, all at once, and it is nearly incapacitating, overwhelming, heartbreaking.  And some days she wonders if she can go on, but she knows that she will.  Because this is her life, and this is her purpose, and if she was not this then really what would she be?

A 20-something girl that could have saved the world.

She will be the same person she has always been, or she will die trying.  Die happy and at peace knowing that she never gave up, not on herself, and not on the world.

Because everyone knows this world could use a bit of saving.

Some days are harder than others to keep going, to keep believing.  The thoughts are harder to shut down, the feelings are impossible to overcome.  Today was one of those days.  One of those days when everything was more real.  The pain that surrounded her was more intense, almost pulsing with its own heartbeat.  My body was so in tune with the universe and with others that I lost myself for a moment.  One moment.  And it all came crashing down.  She finds it hard to describe...and even harder to prove to herself why she should continue to try.

When the lies come full circle

Somewhere along the way she lost something that she cannot place.  She can feel the deep pang for this unknown thing, but she cannot identify it anymore than she can find it.  She has gained so much recently that it is unsettling how empty and alone she feels.  She has grown so much, and yet she does not know whether this growth is an accomplishment, or a curse.  She fears many things, and feels so much loss.  The ripples of her past are growing to be waves of regret, tsunamis of misunderstanding.

Looking back there are many events that led her to become the girl that she is now.  She has lost so much.  She finds it hard to believe that anything in her life can be consistent, that anyone would be willing to stay.  People always leave...and the wreckage they leave behind is nearly insurmountable.  She has picked up her own pieces so many times that she is sure she no longer resembles that girl that she used to be.  She is saddened to leave so many versions of herself behind.

And yet she is not.  That girl that she used to be, the many versions that have existed along the way, they were lost.  She does not remember a time in her life that she was not lost.  So as she stands on solid ground for the first time it is unfamiliar.  She does not trust the feeling that she will not fall.  But she is grounded by much more than she has ever experienced.

She has love.  Honest love.  But she is unsure if she can believe him.  He seems different, but then again didn't they all?  She knows that her past has marked her.  She is aware of the exact moments that have caused her to doubt this.  And there are moments, times when his eyes shift, or when his smile twists in just the right wrong way.  And she is taken right back, back to that moment.  She sees another's eyes, and she feels everything she thought she had let go of so long ago.

The truth is that it still hurts.  It might always hurt.  It may never change.  And as time goes on he is less accepting of the flaws.  He understood in the beginning, but he has reached a point where it is not an excuse anymore.  He will not accept that she is damaged anymore.  She is terrified, unsure.  She does not know what to do because she cannot change this.  She has tried so hard to leave that in her past, those feelings, that abuse.  But as she types this she knows she never will.

If we are honest he ruined her.  She will always hold on too tight.  She will always fall too hard.  She will always wonder.  Wonder if there is not a monster behind those beautiful eyes.  She does not have a problem loving, but she will never trust that those eyes will not quickly and quietly turn.  She may never believe that she is enough.  And she will never allow him deep enough inside her heart to crack it.  If she could, if he could look into that chamber, if he could see who she truly is, would he stay? 

When she was 18 she fell. Fell hard and fell fast, and surrendered everything she had inside of her heart and inside of her soul to a boy.  And for years she believed she had something that no one else could ever or would ever understand. She thought she was lucky, that they had that one in a million first love that would last forever.  And then he shed his lies, and he broke her. No wound compares to the scars that remain on her spirit.  Her wings are blackened, and they are tattered and they hold tight and protectively around the pieces of her heart that he left behind.

She lost so much more than a boy the day he walked away.  She lost direction and she lost faith, in herself and also in the world.  Years later she has not found her way back.  And she wonders if maybe she had her love.  She wonders if her epic love was wasted.  But more than anything she wonders if she will get another chance, if this is her chance and she is simply too broken to let him in.

He loves her. But he has never seen what she hides.  So life has come full circle and it is she that must shed her lies.  And she fears that look in his eyes when she breaks him just the same.