UNTIL THE DEEP WATER STILLS

OCEANS

 

This is not the way it was supposed to be. When I left this house to start my own life I had big dreams. I was going to point my camera at all the world’s great wonders. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the Coliseum, the Serengeti. I’d sail on every ocean.

When I got on staff at The Star I thought it was my big break. I was sure they’d recognize my talent right away and post me to some exotic foreign bureau where my star would begin to rise. My photographs would be in every major publication.

 

But the world stubbornly resisted recognizing that I was made for bigger things. By the time Jayce came along I was looking for a rescuer. Someone to build a new dream around. He was solid and stable so I anchored myself in his ocean.

 

Now here I am on this porch back where I started with my tail tucked between my legs. Waiting for Jayce to come so I can look him in the eyes and say, “No, I’m not coming back.” What is left of my dreams now? Who am I?

 

 

I’m a child-at-heart mother who played catch me if you can with an impressionable young man. I found in Nicholas everything Jayce was not. That’s always been my character flaw. I want both the knight on a white horse and the sophisticated artist.

 

It’s over with Jayce. And Nicholas? Was he just a toy I played with for awhile or do I actually want him?… That’s a question for another day.

 

 

 

I think we lose a part of ourselves when we bind our life to another person. We each give away something and take something new in. It’s an even exchange. But if that ends you don’t get back the part of yourself you invested. When you let yourself love – and it is a choice – it comes with consequences that last a lifetime. Love is its own ocean.

 

There is one thing I’ll forever regret – what I screamed to Jayce about Michael-John. Even if it is true, which I don’t know for sure, it was wrong to use it the way I did. It tore apart in a heartbeat the only thing that was keeping him under control. Why isn’t he here yet? I expected him to be here before nine. Why all of a sudden is he breaking his pattern?