Hugs

It’s been awhile since anyone has hugged me. I smile, they smile, and I wrap my arms around them. It’s superficial, friendly, and something even close enemies can safely participate in. But that’s only something that soothes the itch of the surface.

It’s been so long since someone actually drew me close, put their body against mine and said, “I love you.” It doesn’t have to be a significant other, just a person—someone—anyone to hold me. My mother, my father, a friend. I am starved of essential nutrition. Like an evanescent flower without water, I feel as though I am withering. Clouds that are dark and evil congregate over my home—my very life. Rain is falling like tears all around me but never hitting my open wrists turned to Heaven.

Emptiness. It’s inside of me. I feel a void and I can’t tell if I’m falling or flying.

I want to orient myself. Please help me.

Somewhere out there, someone is listening. In those moments when I feel dead and I’m seconds away from my last breath, faithful arms always catch me. Like the finale of a grand Opera or Shakespearean masterpiece, the final act ends with my rediscovery of love. That human contact—I may be lacking it, but unlike my Daily Bread, it’s a luxury I don’t need, nonetheless deserve.

Chasing Clouds

Every cloud has its silver lining, whether it’s stormy and gray or puffed like a marshmallow.  Every person has a dream that they wish for, be it on pennies in a pond or stars in the sky.  Every step builds on another, creating a spiral of life’s stepping stones.  This is our existence.  Trials and tribulations that etch us from nondescript stone to the masterpieces that our loved ones proudly proclaim.

Some things that may seem like the end of reality are only the beginning of a new one.  Maybe you were drifting into oblivion.  Perhaps you didn’t want to cast that penny or climb that stair.  Endings force you to find beginnings.

It may hurt.  A lot.  It may seem as though all the cuts and pain and blood in the world cannot begin to describe the wounds of your soul.  You may feel detached and just ready to tie a balloon to your wrist drift away from reality into those stormy clouds.  This just means you fail to see the sparkles of silver they cast on the horizon.  Never fear, they are never far.

Perhaps you are in pain.  Maybe instead of saying “sorry” next time someone has had their heart gouged out of their chest you will wrap your arms around them and say the same thing, but with empathy.  Perhaps this pain is only a page in your story that you must study and learn from rather than skim to avoid gruesome details.

Don’t let the fire of hurting inside consume you.  Let those flames fizzle and burn away.  Take the ashes and use them to cultivate something new.  Use the stormy clouds to water the budding future and the fluffy whites to shade the sprout when things look bleak.

Find that place, find that healing, find that silver lining in the clouds and chase them until you can fly Home together.