I sat on the
bench, tears streaming down my face, the breath in my chest coming rapidly but
in ragged gasps. “Get it together,” I said to myself. Even after all these
years he still got to me in the way I hated most. He wormed his way into my
heart and broke it all over again. I remember the day he screamed at me in the
parking lot- me hysterical and him on an angry rampage. People started at us as
he yelled in my face, tears pouring down as I begged him to just listen to what
I was trying to say. He wouldn’t have any of it. I reached out and clung onto
his arm in a desperate attempt to make him see me. I knew I looked pathetic but
I just had to make him realize that I wasn't doing this because I wanted him, I
was doing it because I cared for him in a way that I had never cared for anyone
else. He had been my best friend, my lover, and my companion for so long that I couldn't bear to see him make such a big mistake.
He thought I
was just the jealous ex-girlfriend that was too attached. I knew what was in my
heart and it wasn’t jealousy- it was hurt and confusion, not love. Eventually,
he may have realized this, just as I had. He waited too long to tell me he made
a mistake, something I realized at the very beginning. His time had come and
gone. Like the river flowing into the ocean my water was new and fresh and I
had left behind the confinement of the banks for the openness of the rolling
tides.
I lay there
on the bench, the tears slowly coming to a stop, my face to the sky. The
remainder of the tears mingled on my cheeks with the raindrops. One hand rested
on my stomach and the other dangled at my side, brushing lightly against the
soft blades of grass. I could see the pre-dawn light coming up over the trees,
the stars still sparkling brightly in the purple sky. The warm summer air hung
all around me and the cool rain drizzled all over my body. I knew that this was
my time. The realization hit me right in the chest and made the breath catch in
my throat. Hot against cold. Night against day. The constant push and pull of
the natural balance. It was like what was inside me- a natural war. They weren't fighting against each other they were just looking for an inner balance-
something nature had figured out very long ago.
So I continued to lie there, letting
the rain pour down over me and soak into my skin and smooth away my rough
edges. I was like a pebble on the beach of life. At the beginning my edges are
rough and raw. But as life comes with its lessons and challenges so does the
tide. It crashes down and engulfs the pebble, making it feel as if it is
drowning at times, but eventually it fades away. And there the pebble remains-
changed and more smoothed by what has happened throughout its life. I finally
understood that my pebble just had a few more bumps than some others, but that’s
what made me special- I was rough.
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