Anniversary of Prose

It is my fourteenth anniversary of writing prose. It started years before I began a blog. No computer, no access and invisible bars that no one could see but never the less were still there. Freedom started slow from the four mile walk taking the children to preschool to my father sending me the coolest bicycle. Challenges that seemed small to many were huge triumphs on a personal level. Still with all that I achieved, the bars that restricted my heart and soul remained. Feeling cut off from the world I was able to bicycle to the public library which was 9 miles one way, to send and email. Desperately reaching out to be heard and acknowledged.
The first one hundred poems that were handwritten in a notebook as I lay at night working through and array of emotion still sit boxed away in the corner of my bedroom. Some of them I still relate to and others feel more like a stranger than a diary of my own soul.
The journey was filled with hope and happiness and a not so balanced scoop of fear,heartache and loneliness. It was only through writing that I some how escaped the negativity that surrounded me. The words were not so much about the people I met along the journey but about the emotions trapped within me that needed expressed.
My first friend that stood at the gateway of experience,  was a young man whose needs were greater than mine own. In helping him get beyond his own personal demons ,  I found that I too conquered insecurities and built new steps leading to confidence.
Interpretation, that always amazed me. When people would read the poetry and feel the touching of their own hearts as they related to my journey or even more so saw themselves within it. There were times that I struggled more than others and a few stanza's from the many poems remind me of a time when the gateway to survival was opened and yet threatened to be boarded up. 

"I shall never let time deafen the sound of your voice

 on the darkest days, laughter will replace tears"

 

or

" like the fir tree whose branches were growing I too was growing

and reaching with life at my fingertips"

 

I thought of much of the journey like the children's story Oz, where different people I met along the way brought something along with them, like a lesson in life. I sometimes felt that maybe I had failed at some of what I needed to learn. That fear still dominated my decisions while circumstance was the bricks that formed the yellow brick road. As if at the end of  the journey I would have all the answers I would ever need. That is far from the truth as it quite difficult to see tomorrow through yesterdays window.  Which reminds me of a friend in passing who sent me a crystal ball.  That revealed we are not always meant to know what tomorrow will bring.

 

When reading prose you might get a glimpse of a day of triumph or a day of sorrow but you will always see my heart as it views the world and all that is in it. Which reminds me of an elderly women who collected my poetry she said.

 

" Your poetry is the last thing I read before I go to bed and the first thing I read when I wake up." That is pretty impressive. Even if the words touch but one soul.

 

I still question chapters as I review them , almost like rereading a book. Did I accomplish all I could have? Did I make all the right choices ? Did I have to experience all the pain of heartache to appreciate the joy of love?

When someone is getting an award they say " I want to thank all the people that  made it possible" But it was a friend that said " you can thank all the people in the world you want, but it was you  who made it all possible. With your hard work and dedication and belief in yourself and of course the strength to overcome all the struggles."