this is NOT what I need to be doing right now

    

      Sometimes, life knocks the wind out of you. Maybe you forget that you could feel so much because certain emotions don't come along everyday. So when you feel it, it feels unfamiliar. You become aware of your soul again, what makes you tick. I got in my bed the other day, legs numb from the cold, and I was undoubtedly aware of an ache I had never felt before. Like there was wind whistling through me. It hurt. My skin was porous and my body was hollow. And it burned. But once you can feel pain, you know how to fix it.
     Sometimes, after the wind is knocked out of you, you move on. You keep breathing, no matter how hard. And the breath comes back. Even if you don't know how. Its involuntary, living is. Its your default. The wind becomes pleasant again. It awakens the scent of the trees, makes you feel like you're moving again and you wonder how the wind was ever painful to you. You find inspiration in a picture, words that touch you, a person that fixes you up, turns you around, and sends you on your way because they know its what's best for you. It's funny how quickly the heart switches from one emotion to the next, feeling joy sometimes so overwhelming that it can forget any hurt.
     Sometimes, when you least expect it to, life makes it up to you. Another sunrise comes, bringing a beautiful day. Inside jokes crack me up. My baby girls call me on the phone. And suddenly, I'm reminded that its about balance. And not necessarily that my life is balanced, but that I'm reminded that life goes on in all the best ways regardless of what conflict is in my head. And heart for that matter. You move on. Regardless of what it was, why it ever happened, what actually happened, what would've happened, where it was going. None of it matters.
      Sometimes, though, you feel it again. A moment that catches you off guard. A song. Picture. A thought. Just a memory. The hole burns again, raw, from the wind whistling through it again. It fades quickly but, even if you're able to smile at what once was, it feels like its your reality again. Its mysterious, but its all there to remind me that I'm alive. Alive. Living. Feeling joy and pain. Enjoying an uninhibited array of raw emotions that are only human and therefore in themselves beautiful and God given.
So thanks. For reading, for feeling, for being there.