Just the Way You Are

I felt a fleeting pang of regret that I had no one to share this with, before shaking my head at the concept that you have to share something in order to fully appreciate it. I’d experienced a moment of magic, and that was something to treasure.

I found myself wondering what she’d think of the paint colour I’d picked, or wanting to let her know how my promotion was going, to laugh about Irene Jenkins. I knew she’d be nonplussed about me having a dog, and I found myself having imaginary conversations with her in my head, trying to justify this new life I was leading, in some vain attempt to win her approval.

I curled up in my new garden chair staring at the trees and the birds and the sky, and I nudged that sorrow into gratitude that I was here, and not there any more, and that today was a new day, rich with endless possibilities as beautiful and magnificent as this new dawn.

I will make a thousand mistakes, I will take many wrong turns, and I may well fail spectacularly, along with every other person who ever lived. And when these things happen, I will shake it off and get back up again – maybe accepting a helping hand, if I need it – and I will keep on going.

I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone so much while still being so happy not to have to see or hear from them.

I lay in bed, watching the sunrise beyond my open window, and thought about how life can flip inside out in one faltering heartbeat.

Maybe sometimes families are made, not born.

‘Because a tiny chance is still a chance. And that makes it worth it.’

Getting out here with the birds and the beasties helps it not seem so…’ I waited while he stared at his plate for a long moment. ‘It’s a bit of company. The kind who don’t ask intrusive questions about how you’re feeling.’

‘I will be weird! I’ll be like a wild rabbit forced to live in a tiny cage with 118,000 domesticated rabbits who think it’s all normal and fine and don’t understand why I can’t even breathe properly squashed into that smelly, polluted, ugly cage.’

‘I don’t want to lose her. But I won’t risk losing myself, now I’ve finally found me,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘I like me a lot more than her.’

‘Honestly, not many heroes wear capes or have huge muscles,’ I replied. ‘Most are ordinary people who simply have the courage to do the right thing when it needs to be done.’

Is there a bigger risk than choosing to be yourself, however boring or peculiar that might be, and allowing other people to know that person, while committing to loving them for the long haul?

A kiss that woke up parts of me I hadn’t known were sleeping. A kiss that contained a thousand promises of love and laughter and a lifetime of kisses to come. It was the kiss I’d been dreaming of since I sat in my bedroom and started a list. It was the kind of kiss that made a woman believe dreams can come true, after all.