The Boy on The Bus

Across the bus, a young boy caught his eye.  His blue eyes were rimmed with red.  His curly hair sat is a messy mop on top on his head.  He looked utterly hopelessly alone.

He knew that look.

The boy reminded him of the summer when he turned twelve.

He had sat on a bus, much like this one.  Shipped to his distant aunt's home after that wretched accident.  That awful day when reality pulled the rug out from under him and whisked his parents away forever.  He remembered crying for days at a time.  He remembered sitting in the ugly bus seat with burning eyes begging his heart not to break in such a public place.  That was the most he could do back then, beg the feelings not to overwhelm him and curse them when they disobeyed.  His cousins didn't understand why he was always angry.  No one did really.  He was sick of their pitying looks and their meaningless condolences.  It was all words.  Nothing could change what had happened to him.  No amount of sorry was going to fix it.

He had taught himself not to cry that summer.  He managed to take all the rage, confusion, and pain and twist it into his own tool.  The feelings fueled his art, made him successful.  But he'd give it all up if it meant never feeling that pain at all.

He wished he could tell the boy it would be alright, whatever it was that he was fighting to push down.  He wished he could reach across the seat and console him.  But how would that look?

Instead, he gave the tiny girl with the blonde, ringlet curls nestled under his arm an extra dollar and told her to buy some candy to share with the little boy.  His daughter obeyed immediately, excited at the prospective new friend.  When his wife gave him a questioning glance, he sighed and told her it was nothing.

When the girl plopped down next to the boy, he seemed wary.  But her constant chatter was infectious and soon he was easing into conversation.

If only someone had done that for him, the man thought maybe he wouldn't have spent so long feeling alone.

Made of Lace

She had a habit of hiding behind a curtain of golden waves of hair.
It was safe behind the curtain, no one could see her.
No one could see the pale blue of her eyes or try to read the stories stitched on to her heart.

Her voice was gentle, like she was afraid her voice could shatter the air around her.
Her hands were soft;afraid of touching something too hard.
Afraid of breaking someone the way she had been broken.
Afraid of scaring someone off.

Everything about her was fragile, delicate, soft.
Her heart.
Her dreams.
Her words.
Her hopes.
Her mind.

She was like ancient lace; beautiful, intricate, subject to deteriorate under too much friction.

She needed someone who could put her behind glass and keep her safe, but all her life she longed for someone who could unravel all her threads only to weave her into some new material more suited to the roughness of the world.

It Wasn't a Movie

I always wanted a romance worthy of a Nicholas Sparks novel, or a classic movie.
I always wanted Hollywood.
And I thought I got it.

I thought I finally got to be that girl in the classic.
The cliched, predictable love story.
I thought I was the young innocent who fell for the older, guarded, misunderstood.
I thought I was 16 and in love with a dangerous, mysterious guy that I would end up fixing and finding forever with.

It was perfect.
It was love at first sight.
It fell beautifully in line with every great romance story.
It rose and fell in the right ways at the right moments.
Tragedy struck right on cue, when everything was perfect.

I waited four years for the big resolution.
For the happy ending.
For my own happily ever after.

In the end, I got faked out.
Reality flew on set, wrecked the studio, tore my script, crashed the cameras, and blew out the lights.
And I was left with a suitcase full of broken hearts and shattered plans in the harsh sunlight of life.
Life showed me that it wasn't love, it was adoration and infatuation.
And it hurt like hell for a long time until I learned to see it as a lesson and not a tragedy.

So maybe I didn't get to be Belle in The Beauty and The Beast.
I wasn't Molly Ringwald, he wasn't Judd Nelson and we weren't living in The Breakfast Club.
But I also don't have to carry the weight of a "lost love" with me for the rest of my life.

I don't think I'll ever be able to forget his name.
I don't think I'll ever forget how happy I was.
I don't think I'll ever forget how much I cried.
I don't think I'll forget any of it.

But I know what I deserve now, and what I want, and what love doesn't feel like.

Choosing to Write

I think I've vented on this subject before, so if this seems familiar, forgive me.

I don't understand why people continue to tell me to find a "back up career".  And I cannot figure out for the life of me why they always suggest nursing as that back up.  News flash: I hate needles.  And blood.  And pretty much everything dealing with the human body.  And other humans.  And science. Needless to say, nursing is nowhere in my future.  Ever.

The selfish part of me wants to scream "I've written a book people! A real book!  One that is on my shelf that has my name on the cover and my picture on the back and words in the middle that I came up with!"
But I don't want to be that person so I smile and nod and say "maybe" to ever stupid suggestion I hear.

No I don't want to teach.  I'm not called to teach.  I don't have the patience for it or the desire to do it.
Yes, I'm going to major in English.  Yes I think it is a career, and yes I think it's a good idea.

Honestly though, it's no ones business, and I don't get why everyone thinks I need their opinion.

I have prayed over the decision to pursue writing as a career more than anyone knows.  I have had anxiety about how I'm ever going to make a living.  But what I know for sure it that writing brings me peace.  The idea of being a writer, in any capacity, brings me joy.  The idea that I get to do what I love for the rest of my life is exhilarating.

It's not easy.  It's incredibly difficult to find a thread of inspiration and unravel it completely only to spin it back up into one contiguous story that other people want to read.  I'm not just sitting around day dreaming, I'm researching so my facts are right.  I'm sketching and googling and Pinteresting and erasing and rewriting.  I'm waking up at 2 am because some thought that HAS to make it into my manuscript hits me in the head.  I stay up until 3 am because once I grab hold of some trail, I want to write it out as far as possible so I don't lose it.  I waste my entire check on spiral notebooks because I've filled all twenty piled on my desk.  I write until my hands cramp up because my computer is on the fritz and I have six manuscripts that have to be finished anyway.

So to those people who think writing isn't a career: I don't care.  Every time I look back at my life, all these tiny pieces that never made sense before finally fit together and they all come out to one thing; me writing.  When I look at the progress I've made, the things I've accomplished, I know that it is 100% God.  He is behind everything that I do, and I think if I was following the wrong rabbit whole, I wouldn't be nearly this successful.

No one has to like my choices except for me and my savior.  No one gets to determine if I'm where I'm supposed to be but me and Him.  As long as God is guiding me, no one can tell me I'm on the wrong path.

Cobwebs in The Corner

Thin spindles of silk hang in the corners.
Dust clings to them, ignored for years, decades even.
Dim light filters through grimy, broken windows littering the floor with broken shards of light.

Frost hangs in the corners and winter makes it's slow approach.
Warm wind fades to cool breezes that fall to stinging gusts of ice.

A man huddles in the corner, half frozen.  Close to death.  Transfixed by the cobwebs in the corner.

He mutters the same few sentences over, and over, and over once more.
Some would call him crazy.  Homeless.  Sick.  Deranged.
His frail ears wouldn't pick up the sound anyway.

Stronger than steel.  Smaller than thread.  Holding together till the end.
Stronger than steel.  Smaller than thread.  Holding together till the end.

He chants until his voice goes raw.
Until the effort of speaking is too much.
Soon, he is silent, but the words echo in his head.

The cobwebs in the corner catch the dusty light as the door creaks open.
Boots thunder on the soil floor.  Men rush in, hunch over him, call to one another, talk to him.
He stays silent, holding onto life like a spider's web; by a thin, stretching thread.



It is warm when he wakes up.  The light is brighter;whiter than the cottage's ever was before.  Nurses bustle back and forth.  He's too weak to say a word.

Sleep.  Sleep.  Sleep.  Then strength.  Ounce by ounce, it returns to his bones.  His muscles.  His heart.  His soul.

Much later, a woman reaches for the corner of his room, swatting at a tiny, abandoned web.

"No."  He croaks.  The sound startles her and she stops.
"I don't mind them.  They kept me safe."
She eyes him with confusion but backs away from the webs.

"They teach us.  Stronger than steel, smaller than thread, holding together till the end."  His voice is a whisper as she inches to his bedside.

"Just when you think it can bear no more, it proves you wrong, even when it's been forgotten."  He whispers as he falls asleep.

The woman shuffles out, careful not to disturb the man or his cobwebs.