Life Lessons

When I was nine,

I asked my dad

Why we couldn’t fly

Through the big, fluffy clouds.

They looked so soft, so nice

And he told me

That we couldn’t

Because of the danger

While they looked soft and safe

They were, in fact, the opposite

“They will rip the wings off the plane,”

He told me,

And that’s when I realized

Not everything was as it seemed.

When I eleven,

I remember fuzzy caterpillars

With blue dots on their backs.

Little sticky legs marching on and on and on

And a white stripe down its middle.

They were everywhere in summer

I liked to pick them up,

The feeling of their little feet was ticklish

The feeling fleeting,

Like a summer friend.

But this was not true

For all the caterpillars I met

And soon I learned,

That just because something was similar

Did not make it the same.

When I was fourteen,

Salt was my favorite thing in the world.

Salt spray was adventure, freedom, and family

Salt water was healing, recovery and hope

Salt smelled like safety

Salt tasted like home.

But at the time,

I never understood how harsh

Salt could be.

Until the ocean knocked me flat,

And rubbed me raw under the sea.

Sometimes things have hidden dangers.

When I was eighteen,

I lived in a world of rocks and fog.

Sometimes it felt like

I was a world away from everything

In the winter everything was grey and tall and cold

I felt

So small

Underneath it all.

It was

A foreboding existence.

And yet,

I still loved the wind

In the barren trees.

The quiet desperation of the leaves.

It was a symphony of quiet things.

It taught me that

I’m allowed to be weak.

When I was twenty-two,

I worked in a world of sound.

So different from my quiet safety

That I loved before.

It was cacophonic,

Unending,

Tireless…

I was tired.

The softness was in the mornings,

The quiet calm before a storm.

And it makes me wonder,

Is it bad

To only love

Some parts of things?

I am twenty-four and counting,

A life well-lived or

Only half,

I couldn’t tell,

I couldn’t know.

Am I

A memory?

To myself?

Or to others?

Both, I think.

And staring at the storm outside,

I think

That perhaps

That’s not so bad.

And now I know,

It is ok to only love some parts of things.

It is ok to be weak and to want quiet.

it is ok for things to be hidden, be unexpected, unpredicted.

It is ok for me, for us, to not be the same.

It is ok to be a world unto yourself,

To be different than what you appear.

A deeper meaning?

No.

Already meaningful.

And that, I find, is quite ok.