Sometimes we think that the defining moments in our lives will be born from celebratory milestones and memories that are destined to be commemorated in heavy silver frames.
But sometimes our defining moments are found in broken hearts on kitchen floors and barely-there whispers from within that softly say, No, this will not be the loop of my life. This will not be repeated.
And so it is that the path forward is forged. Rarely is that path smooth and steady, and rarely is the view an illustration of constant beauty. But still, it is a path. It is a path.
There will come a time, someday, someplace, when something within you will wake. And afterwards, nothing will ever be quite the same.
The darkest night will fall, the greatest grief will come, and the hardest hurts will seep into your skin. You will try to hold on to the moving landscape, to steady yourself as your world spins and somersaults with no mercy.
In the speeding seconds that see you hurtling towards some kind of surrender, there will be a pause. A moment that is longer than the others.
It is there in that pause that you will remember the thread of you.
This will be the break of your dawn, the light of your rise. And though the shadows may still seek you, they will not claim you.
This shift, this beautiful knowing of who you are and who you are yet to be, will live forever in the heat of your belly and the fire in your heart.
It cannot be taken from you. Not by anyone.
Sometimes survival looks like a scrapbook of moments that catch your eye just as you teeter at the edge.
You are the greatest of those moments.
You are the reason to stay.
You are everything you need to remember.