fifth row

the fifth row seat, that's always where you'll find her...

the little girl with the blonde hair and the big blue eyes and the oh so very round cheeks...

her hand pressed against the window, sometimes waving, often almost reaching...

my heart resides within her chest, where it's been since that early january morning.

she is everything good in my life, the picture of perfect to me...

each time her little hand reaches up for mine my heart expands just a little more...

her sense of security wavers...one moment she steps away from me, needing little more than to know i'm "somewhere"...the next she holds tight to me, gathering strength from my nearness.

what she doesn't know...what she can't possibly comprehend, is that i gain strength from her too...

knowing she trusts me, that in her eyes i can do anything, that in my moments of weakness i am still all she needs...

she is my fifth row...my security...my stability.

Comfort

“Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are -- chaff and grain together -- certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I've had a lot of time to think the past several months.  This year has not been what I imagined it to be, at least not what I imagined it to be when I looked forward at this time last year.  With each turn came uncertainty and questions, grief and a heightened awareness of my hopes for the future.  I read this poem a couple years ago and wrote it in one of my many notebooks.  I have read it and re-read it at least a hundred times.  It sums up everything I want, everything I need out of a partner.  It's funny, as I get older, I find that in some ways my list of "musts" becomes more detailed; but in all honesty, it all comes down to this - these words - "inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having to neither weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are...certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away".  To have someone love me like THAT.  To take everything I am, everything I'm not, every wish, every dream, every hurt, every worry, every insecurity, every flaw, every triumph, every fail...to take it all and accept it, keeping all that is good and letting go of the rest. 

There is a level of comfort that comes with feeling safe with someone, and for me, what I've learned is that feeling emotionally safe with someone is what I need; what makes me feel whole. 
 

Poking holes in someone else's darkness

I am constantly thinking about stories, mostly those belonging to the people I pass on the street or walking through the store...complete strangers with no connection to me, walking through their lives, many simply just trying to survive the moment they are in.  I believe you can see into someone's soul by looking in their eyes...and so many times we are in such a rush, trying to make our life happen, that we never even truly see the people around us...they almost pass in a blur.  My mind creates their story, weaving together the pieces of what they could be experiencing in a matter of moments...placing them in a context of sort based primarily on their expressions.  So many of them seem so lonely, so desperate for someone to really care about them, so cloaked in their own darkness and dispair...those are the stories I want to tell - those of the unheard, to give a voice to the silent, meaning to the overlooked.  But, those could be anyone's stories.  Yours, mine...we are all there at some point, empty, living our life in darkness; needing to be noticed for who we are not the visible flaws we can't hide. 

I have often tried to figure out why things happen...why our lives unfold the way they do.  I believe that everything happens for a reason in the time it is supposed to...that we meet the people we are supposed to meet at the time we are supposed to meet them.  Perhaps my biggest flaw is trying to hang onto people for longer than I'm allotted with them.  I have a hard time letting go and learning from the experience, cherishing the good memories and letting go of the pain and the questions.  I think the important thing to remember is that each person we meet shapes us, helps us become who we are at this point in our life.  And, each experience, each heartache, each joy, each moment of question helps us to be more empathetic to others...preparing us to poke holes in someone else's darkness.  Of course we don't think that way at the time.  We can't see past our own misery to imagine how it could ever bring us to a place where we could take that experience and help someone else.  But, that's what happens.  That may be the biggest gift, sometimes the only gift, from some of our most painful moments...wisdom; often gained at a very high price, but invaluable to not only us but to those we are able to share it with.