Keylen

Stop running. Slow down. Breathe. Breathe. Don't turn around. No looking back. Keep walking.

A twig snaps and she whirls herself around, unwillingly admitting that she isn't quite alone as she'd hoped. Then again she knew she'd never truly been alone. Now there was unmistakable evidence to that fact.

"Hello?"

"Hello."

"Who are you? Do you know who I am? Why are you following me?" Stay calm. Keep your voice even.

"My name is Keylen, and yes, I know who you are. I will not speak your name here, for I know you have traveled far and wide to erase it from their memories." She motioned to the trees around us, fully understanding their power as I did. "I am not here to harm you, or to force you to travel a path you do not choose yourself. I am merely here to serve as a protection, should you need one. Though you have demonstrated time and again that protection is an area in which you rarely require aid. Nevertheless, I have come to offer myself to you. If not for protection or guidance, than for companionship. I know you can do this on your own, I am simply letting you know that you do not have to do this thing all alone. There are others on your side who are here, ready and willing, to do whatever you may need us to do. Please, stop running from me; let me walk and run with you. Please."

Her accent was thick, her message sincere.

"Come, Keylen. Let us go."

Waiting Walking

Sometimes I feel like my life is a giant game of waiting. I try to keep moving forward in various aspects of my life, and I've certainly come a long way. And yet... I am still waiting.

At some point it becomes hard to imagine a life without waiting. Is there such a life? Really? We all seem to be waiting for one thing or another.

And while there seems to be so much waiting occuring in my life, there has also been so much change and growth and development.

Life hasn't turned out at all like I thought it would, and it has turned out even less like what I'd planned.

I am nowhere I thought I would be 5 years ago, and I've been a million places I'd never dreamed of going in the same span of time.

Someone once said that life just has a way of working out; I really believe that. My life over the last 5 years has, on occassion, appeared - and even felt - like a massive mess, but it has somehow worked out. Those million places I've ended up have changed my life and shaped my soul.

I recently was writing 'My Story' for a history class. As I was thinking about events to add, I found that I was adding the events that really have made me who I am - inside and out. There are definitive moments over the course of my life that acted as crossroads for the person I was becoming. Looking back it became clear that it would have been so easy to stay on the same course I was originally headed on, but events in my life caused me to change course, and it is those unplanned, unexpected changes in the road ahead that have truly made my life what it is - made me who I am.

Perhaps then, life feels like a giant waiting game because there are only so many things we can plan and execute fully. Perhaps the life we are meant to have is the life that we cannot plan for and encompasses all the things we've never dreamed of for our own lives.

I should have listened to John Lennon - "life is what happens while you're busy making other plans".

Amen, John.

I've been more than busy making my other plans.

Despite them, this morning I feel myself approaching yet another crossroads in my life... Are we not all approaching a crossroads - in the near or distant future?

And so, we wait.

But we do not wait idly or in vain.

So perhaps we need to change the verb in the sentence of our lives. Let's walk instead of wait.

And so, we walk, ever living and planning until that crossroads appears and our lives - and souls most likely - are changed and our courses altered.

Let's walk towards the fulfillment of the dreams we've yet to dream.

Goodnight, dear void.

Good morning, Sun

There is something about waking up before the sun that I crave. I love the way it begins to creep through my window in the morning; it is so hope-filled and lovely. And slowly the light fills up the whole house. But those few minutes just before that, I love how it almost isn't sure if it should invade your privacy; its rays almost seem timid as they make their way through the blinds and reach towards you. And it is in their timidness that I love them and wish that they would envelop me and propel me forward into the sunlight of a new day.

Perhaps that is why I'm angry when I wake up at 7:15 every morning (instead of 6:12 when my alarm goes off), at that point I've missed saying 'good morning' to the sun.

Goodnight, dear void.