I am truly blessed to say that I have something to be grateful for this year that I have been working towards for quite some time.
No, not a book deal, though the plot of my book parallels the plot of my own story quite nicely. Purposefully, even. And now I have a way to end it.
The path my characters need to traverse is one of redemption, forgiveness and strength, three things we could all use a dollop of from time to time. I didn't know quite where that path would take them until yesterday, that is November 23rd 2011, when I reached the head of that trail, myself.
No, I don't believe it to be the end, because no path ever truly ends in life, it just leads you on to another beginning. That's what I'm thankful for, the new beginning I've just been given.
When I first began this blog I started with a name, an outdated picture, and a biography detailing my life as an avid reader. I put down my thoughts on covers, titles, character names and books themselves, but never truly reached out to ask you all to know me deeper until my first blog'o'versary.
Today, I am reaching out again, or rather, reaching in, cracking open my heart and offering a small piece of it to you-- all of you who read this blog and have the heart to listen and care about the girl behind the pages.
I have had my heart broken.
It has been in that state for quite some time.
It has been in that state the entire time I've been blogging.
Today is the first day you will know me without it, which, perhaps, makes sharing easier and a greater accomplishment than it could have been any other way.
Yesterday I prayed a final prayer before doing the tremendously terrifying thing that put it back together again. It's been many years in the making, but a scar has formed, one that will never reopen, bleed, or ooze pain again.
What did I do?
I called the boy who broke it.
My best friend since I was seven. The little boy, now a man, who was my first love. I don't know when I fell in love with him, or if I was only ever in love with the boy that had long since passed, but acknowledging that love was one of the many recent steps I have taken to patch myself back up.
It was not the only step, and it was not the most difficult one to take, however, writing about it all, and yes, I so totally did, made the difference.
I woke up from a dream this past July and began plotting out the idea behind the dream. The idea being that a girl had a future past the one she planned for herself, and a chance at redemption, even after goodbye.
While plotting that girl was joined by her two best friends, a tragic love interest, and a small child. I put them in the city I use to call home, and I gave each of them a way to make music. One was given a guitar, another, a microphone, and one of them I gave all the words to, or maybe, she gave them all to me.
The book is getting closer and closer to being "done."
But without the phone call I made and the words that I spoke, "I just wanted you to know, I'm doing better," and the way he responded, "I'm so glad! I've been praying for you," I would never be able to write it all down correctly.
I'm grateful for that chance, as well as grateful for other things:
This knowledge, which I will keep forever, that I never spoke my name once during the entire conversation, but that he knew it after one breathy, 'hello.' That I said the only thing I needed to in order that I could diverge from one path and come to another. That it is finished, and I know I will complete my book, which I am so in love with and truly want to share with all of you in the future.
I am so grateful, no, Thankful, for all of that.
And I'm thankful that I know, the glory belongs to one being who has never left my side, even when the path led me through a forest filled with shadows, howls and palpable fear, even when the road seemed too long, even when He didn't have to walk it with me, He didn't let me go it alone.
To exist in the knowledge that at the end of all things, someone is still holding my hand, yes, I believe I am most thankful for that.
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