this is the place.

This was the center of the world for me once... where things made sense and I knew my place. Who I was. What I meant. How I felt. Hanging out and knowing. No questions asked. I was once stranded and insecure, alone on my knees. Somehow I was picked back up again. Over and over. Learning and reminiscing. Forgiving and crying. Sharing and letting go. My heart has shattered so many times I've often wondered how it would ever fit back together to love, to feel, to give. How do you share something scarred and mended? I will never be a whole. Not really. God makes me new again but I'm still missing pieces. I will never recover who I was before it all.

I hide because it's easier to feel safe alone. Even if arms embrace me, there is no guarantee that they will stay. Arms come and go. So many times I have fallen asleep remembering the way it felt to be held, the way it felt to be wanted, the way it felt to be protected. And, so many times have I watched that memory fade away with the passing of time. And then my heart finds itself again - feeling so deeply on the inside and trying to protect myself on the outside. It's easier to pretend it doesn't matter. It's easier to pretend that I don't care. It's easier to pretend that it doesn't hurt.

These are the bricks that shattered my heart. The bricks of abandonment. The bricks of broken promises, and broken expectations, and replacement. And maybe, I brought it all upon myself. Not being able to feel when it matters. Not allowing my true colors to shine when they needed to. I protect myself when I need to speak up. I lay my heart on the line when it needs to be guarded. And in the end I end up the same as before. Alone. Always, alone.

We're all dreamers. We all dream of the things we want. The goals we want to reach. The passions we want to fulfill. The loves we want to feel. The places we want to go. We're all dreamers. We give and we give until someone tells us we can't, and then we give again... to prove a point. To prove that we're still capable, that we still have what it takes. It doesn't matter how many times we fail. The only consequence is that maybe our original soft and passionate heart suddenly becomes strong and hard. We're still dreamers. We just dream in a different way.


I'm still a dreamer. I still want to feel. But, I've lost my certainty, at least for a little while anyway.