EASTER Time of Reflection

You wake up to a cool breeze. Dark as night your alarm hits a high. You shut it off for 5min but you really want 5 more hours. You lay there, in silence. As if to be meditating but really to look around your room. The space you now call home and wonder if this is it. All the years and experience brought you to this. Back in your child home where all you have is memories of happy times and surrounding reminders of what was. No dating, no boys or even intimate connections. Just happy memories that made you happy to be alive.

Time passes, your alarm sets off again. You set it to snooze. You feel a sense of gratefulness and yet loneliness feels your soul in some way. Yet you feel something is missing, like you’re searching for something that you haven’t felt before. You’re not sure what it may be but you know it will feel right and that you can sleep in peace. Your alarm goes off a third time. You tell yourself not to keep thinking of things and get ready. You strip the bed of its sheets as you deflate your air mattress. It’s time for the day.

A cold breeze brushes through the streets of New York. Spring should be here but the sun is not up yet and still you daydream of the past. You look back in regret because you wonder if coming out so late was right for you. You wonder how safe and comfortable you were when you had false confidence and had no connection to the world of dating. Ostracized to that world a new, you had focused on friends and experiences. To hustle and grind to find something that gave you constant joy while building income.

A passion where pieces would fit into place like legos. Legos were fun for kids. It help to learn that things would fit into place because it had a place to fit. Unlike legos, we are constantly growing and changing lifestyles. Interests that bring excitement and exploration. You worry of staying in the same place may get stale but still, you wait. You wait for something to come and change that because you know there’s something that will be “good enough” to fit the pieces of legos. Focus on one thing and become a master at it most have said.

Like Super Mario you develop an array of gifts. Several talents that become who you are. An onion where each layer is another piece of you that’s waiting to be explored and celebrated. To stay focused is to give up on one of them. To prioritize a section and care for the other layer in hopes to not forget. You fear forgetting because it means you don’t have proof of its existence. With no proof, did it happen? If you forget then does that mean you forget a piece of yourself? You walk along dark streets in thought until “BOO!”.

A shock to self as someone jump scares you back to reality. So lost in thought, for a second you forget where you are. As if to have your body guide you to your destination. Knowing of the short woman from a distance whom consumed in Easter attire. Bunny pin and a jean jacket. Hair messy with a bag of Easter candy. “Get home safe!” She chuckles as she passes by. Covered in goosebumps you stagger for a few seconds as you continue walking. Walking realizing that late bloomers have missed out on a lot before, but now, we’re here.