Happy Monday, everyone. I suppose my thoughts are dwelling on the romantic today….
“I am,” it said quietly.
Quite a bold statement, if you think about it. Declaring your existence to the world is almost a brave act in itself. It takes a lot of courage to unequivocally declare one’s existence – to claim one’s place in the world and to do so proudly.
“I am,” it repeated, a little louder this time.
That felt good. It took a deep breath and congratulated itself. Then it screwed its courage to the sticking place. And took another deep breath.
“I am!!!” it shouted.
Well, now. That felt better. It’s a load off of one’s shoulders, to definitely know that you exist. Isn’t it, reader?
It is. It was. It would be. That much was certain.
Now, the grand question…. What was it?
That was as yet to be determined.
It did not know much, but it remembered some…. It remembered being placed in a velvet bed, with all the others. It remembered the brightness of the lights and the dim, cool loneliness of the nights. Most of all, it remembered feeling honored, privileged somehow, when someone pointed to it and said “I want that one.”
It remembered ambivalence and fear. The jittery, jiggly, upside-down feeling that you get before things have been decided, just before the pieces fall into place.
A pocket is not a good place to be during such times. It remembered much pacing. Much jiggling and walking and thinking….
It is difficult to describe the experience of another being’s thinking. Suffice it to say, it feels very much like the heat coming off of a boiling teapot. You know there’s much action and boiling and roiling going on in there, even if you can’t see it.
It remembered the nervousness, the feeling of your insides jangling around inside of you.
But nothing lasts forever. All things happen, sooner rather than later, if we have the patience to wait for them.
And it remembered hope. Being proffered, held up by a warm palm.
It remembered the words, “I love you.”
It remembered the words, “I love you too.”
And “Always.”
And now it sat, wrapped around a finger, on a hand so far away from where it had started, but where it now belonged.
Sunlight blazed through the stone, setting sparkles against the wall.
“I am,” it said, with quiet confidence.
It was.
And it knew what it was.
It was, and forever would be, a symbol of love.
And it was perfectly fine with that.
Mildly inspired by Vindicated, by Dashboard Confessional:
“Hope dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption
Winding in and winding out
The shine of it has caught my eye”
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