Breathe.

     It's a chilly January night and I'm in the mood to write. The only problem- I'm exhausted and I can't think, think, think. I just want to relax and let the sweet lull of the music sweep the thoughts from my mind and transfer them to the keyboard. "Hush," my mind says, "breathe." 
     
     I love what I do. I love being a reader, a thinker, a writer, and breather. I love being a wife who waits for her husband to return valiantly from the swaying seas. I love my puppy and the place I'm in- right now- in my life.  I love growing closer to friends and clutching on to those once in a lifetime relationships. The kind of people who help you grow and you open yourself wholly to, even if sometimes that means not having a shield and you get hurt. 
    
     But of course there is the real world. With obligations and deadlines and "write this six page paper for 20 points." The real world is messy. Unforgiving. It doesn't stop to let you collect yourself when you feel as if you may burst. It makes you want a cigarette, although the mere thought of them detests you. There's sickness, and sorrow, and sometimes- mistakes. Big mistakes. And you want to scream, and kick, and blame yourself for everything you've done wrong and for every way you've been wronged. Then there's forgiveness. I never truly knew the meaning of that word until my life was tested and my future depended upon it. 
    
     A candle gently flickers as it lights my old Victorian apartment. I'm alone- although I know someone out there, thousands of miles away, is carrying my heart with him. He comes home soon. So soon I can almost taste it. But it's not today, and it's not tomorrow. So for now... all I have is this room, this keyboard, and you. My followers, my readers (even though you are strangers, you have no idea how much it means to me to have an audience to write to.)  

               

     I bite my lip. "This will have to do." The music has calmed me down. It's funny how it does that. I don't know anything else that can get to me quite like it can (besides a good book). I change the song to Bon Iver's "Holocene" and I drift away. While I wait for life to grab me by the wrist and pull me in eight different directions- I can appreciate this time to myself. Tonight I can breathe. Tonight I will go to sleep missing my husband. But tomorrow I will wake up one day closer. And yes, that will have to do.                                                                         

     When you feel the need to escape from the madness, the city lights, and the menial tasks each day brings: Sit back, relax, put on some Bon Iver- and breathe. Let it all in. And let it be.