The Road Most Traveled

There are lives we live in between the quiet confines of our minds, and then there are the faces we show to the world. We let bits and pieces slip through the cracks, but only a few cherished souls truly get to to see the brokenness, the mistakes, and the mental crimes that have been committed. I've always had this desire to walk away from what was, and start over without the complications of remembering the past. The aspects of my life that made it completely unbearable to remain in Michigan are shoved into a crevice in the back of my brain. However, the moment I try to pretend that the Melanie who lived that life does not exists, she comes back to haunt me. She returns to remind me that today is not the only day I've ever lived. There was a darker journey taken long ago, and the purpose of that road should never be forgotten.

Lives Lived exists in various places. There are a multitude of version on my computer and a few hard copies. The story is not what it started out as back in 2005. It has morphed into a less painful tale that doesn't create as much anxiety as the original concept. I changed it because I couldn't take the excavation of dirty secrets, big and small. Life is easier when you can hide. Instead of facing that bleak truth that stares back at you in the mirror, you can blame everyone else, destroy any goodness that comes into you heart, and run away once you've ruined everything. At the end of all of that, when you're standing alone and all of your fears have been justified by your own cowardice, you accept the self-fulfilling prophecy as Truth. Of course, if you hold any measure of intelligence, and if there is any way you can win back some of the goodness in your life, you make an urgent plea and run towards the light.

There is that adage about writing what you know. What if what you is so painful that it causes ripples of the past to reoccur and paralyze your mind? What if what you know is so shameful, and buried so far away from anything that your family and friends would expect, that you can't imagine baring it to the world? But what if your mind will never rest until this information is twisted into a tale of redemption? As awful as it was, I did survive. I was given a second chance. When I pray there is a whisper, an answer to everything, but I shrink away from it in fear. Tragedy is only in vain if nothing is learned and no good comes out of its existence. This hidden journey I have shoved aside fights for freedom, and slips out the way blood seeps through an incompetent suture. I know how to heal it. I just have to be brave enough to look at it, accept what it is, forgive myself, and put it away.