The Story of My Life is The Story of Our Life
Where do you begin with the telling of a life? Anyone’s life, let alone only touching the back cover version of it. Every moment, every breath holds series of chosen words to explore and express. One not less valuable than another. Maybe you start with the end and look back…
Epitaph reads: “sweet and gentle.” Filler includes various roles including daughter, friend, neighbor, lover, wife. Closing with “a true nice girl.” Words that at times wish me to an early grave.
The cover never really tells the tale, BUT it does sell the book.
There was a time in my life when I would replay every event that had ever occurred in memory again and again before I fell asleep. Because “I didn’t ever want to forget.” I used to refer to my tender age of five as “THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE,” except for the childhood nightmares that continues to creep in the cracks of my mind and haunt me with their seemingly still energy.
I lived in the past, looking back, believing that my life was good, somehow always managing to never see the shadow that always followed along side of me. I perfected this vision, this way of seeing, throughout the years, so that when the lady with the gentle eyes and warm heart said, “How can you smile when you tell me your story?” I replied, “Oh I don’t know… God will use it all for good.” …And I believed it.
Events occur, hearts are broken, walls are built, holes are mended. My story is not unlike your own. We carry our layers of linear time, occasionally shedding, revealing a fresh new coat. Layers like a woven tapestry, each new thread, a story as rich as its own color with texture, endurance and strength building upon the previous, creating an oeuvre, a story of ones own.
One day I turned around and saw the future. Bright as flames, the warmth drew me in like a moth with its flimsy wings and hopes and dreams, I fluttered mad with desire distracted with what could be. I learned that I prefer the warmth to the cold of the past, no longer looking back.
The beat goes on, pulling us into this mad dance of the universal rhythm, searching, exploring, discovering, yearning, stretching, growing, creating, destroying…continuing to beat the drum with raw hands of the god who is all of us and everything and nothing all the same… Beating. Beating to the sound that is there when we close our eyes, while in the dark we slowly, begin, to breathe… and find that it is our own heart beating in unison with all there is and of what we call life.
As I grew tired, I began to slow, and yearned to be still in the present. I am still tired. Here I find peace. The shadow that once frightened me, reaches out to comfort me.
Epitaphs are always words assembled by another. Pieces of a life shattered in memory, left with jumbled instructions on how it is supposed to appear. Recreated, the constructed relic is always tainted by another’s perception. How THEY want to remember you. Their own story of you.
The story of me that I would have you read:
...Like the lotus, I came from the muck which fed and nourished me. Giving me life which I drew from. Rising towards the moon, I am in the process on becoming something silently awesome and beautiful. Some know me as Nikole with a "K", others as Nikki depending on the stages of seriousness in my life. If you really know me, it's only and will always be me-nikk. I'm the girl next door that you called "crazy" one too many times. Maybe, just maybe... you were right. I was, and am still never satisfied with the ordinary. And maybe to me... you were just that. Ordinary. Hopefully, I found you extraordinary, and still do whether we talk everyday or you're simply a cherished fading memory. You either loved me or hated me. It was never anything in-between. If you were fortunate to be on the love side of things, I made my mark, and I made it deep. Somewhere in you, you'll always remember and will be changed somehow... forever.