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Fresh Start:

Balance

By Caralee CorePublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Google. (n.d.). Retrieved 1/28/2021.

Fresh makes me think of the ripe, deep pink, watermelon that I just cut into on a summer day as the juices drip off the blade of my knife creating a sticky coating on my countertop. Fresh is what I think about when the spring air has awoken from hibernation to overcome the beast and the beauty of the winter. Fresh, tells a story of new, unbothered, and untainted. With every new year, I beg for a fresh start. A way of waking up one day to place my feet firmly on the floor and like a snake, shed the skin I am in. I imagine that every particulate of dead and dry skin holds a thousand emotions, memories and bits of all that is misunderstood about me. I hope that a fresh start will mean that, when I open my eyes to face the morning, my brain will no longer be “different,” and therefore easier to understand.

With each new year, like many of us do, I anticipate with excitement, what’s next? For a moment, I am with my inner child and we are discussing poetry, drawing, dancing and how beautiful every single soul is that graces this earth. We daydream on a porch swing of days we wake up happy, the world doesn’t feel overwhelming and we run through the grass feeling every blade between our toes. The worries are non-existent, and the days are long and filled with laughter. Soon though, she must reprieve for the energy that sustains her is short lived. The clouds roll in and begin to drop acidic water molecules on the perfect blades of grass, bending them and making it difficult for us to find our footing. We slip and slide to find shelter because we know that we can not stay on our feet for long in these conditions. I let her go. I don’t want to steal her joy. She was so happy creating and being full of life. I find shelter in a place closed off to most other humans. A place I created that is safe for me to experience the storms. This is new. I have never had a shelter and I have never let the “child” go.

The dialogue in my head repeats over and over again, “It’s your chance for a fresh start. Don’t mess this up,” with emphasis on “don’t mess this up.” I’ve experienced this before though. Not in a physical sense but in an emotional sense. In my head, I create a masterpiece. It begins with a brilliant idea of my endless imagination, I work with it, the creativity flows and then when I emerge from my dwelling of safety, I begin to share with others. I notice the change in their eyebrow posture, the glaze that comes over their eyes and the way their body shifts into a form of nonverbal anticipation of nonsense.

In a matter of minutes, I find myself retreating, wishing I could find a place of balance. I imagine this “fresh start” to look much like a teeter totter that I would have played on as a child in a public park. The kind that was sensitive to the shift in weight but smooth so that as the weight shifted, I would glide freely without being stopped by a wood splinter. I imagine the laughter and joy this “fresh start” would bring me and the little girl who would remain on the other end of the teeter totter, smiling and bringing innocence and untainted joy to the balance.

Just like life has shown us time and again, magic, while a very noble thought, is a figment of the imagination and waking one day to find your whole world in balance is a highly unlikely feat. To begin my fresh start, I plan to invite that little girl back into my life. I want to spend time with her, pick her brain and observe her every interpretation of this world. I want to know what it is like to live free of a detriment that binds the soul and closes every door of opportunity to hold the world in my hands.

happiness
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About the Creator

Caralee Core

I am a midwestern, mom of 2, wife, CNA and EMT. I have always been a creative writer but spent the majority of my life masking for the greater sum of humanity. I am imperfect. I am complicated and I am passionate.

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