Six Years

Six years.

It has now been six years.

Six years today.

Six years this very day.

Six years since I chose life instead of a bitter ending.

I’m six years better and six years bolder.  Six years wiser.  Six years grayer.  Six years more wrinkly.  Six years and my lap is softer, my curves are more curvy and parts of me are saggier.  Anyone who looks can see lines under my eyes that tell the story of where I was six years ago. Six years closer to what I want and six years further away from who I never wanted to be.

Uphill years.  Happy years and sad years.  Downhill years.  Sliding backward and holding on with my fingernails years. Learning, hoping, wishing, needing, trying, failing, laughing, crying and silently praying years.  (Some not so silent praying years, too.)

Six years.

Six whole years.

Years of loving and enduring, Years of second guessing and feeling inadequate. Years of feeling that I can’t take another step and of knowing that I am boundless–progressing and moving forward.  Years of change.  Years of strength and years of stagnation.  Vulnerable years. Powerful years. Grateful years.  Forsaken years. Years of looking back to what was and looking ahead to what will be.

Six years of reflection and growth.  Six years of trying to make the world a better place; a happier place.

Six years scraping my soul against the jagged rocks of what my brain often tries to tell me I am, just to feel deep in my gut that I am worth so much more than I can imagine.  That I could do this.  That I can do this.

Six years of kissing little faces and breathing in the scent of my children.  Six years of holding the artistic hands of the one who has fought for me and with me and, sometimes, against me.  Years of “someday” and “one day” and “today”.  Years of grabbing fear by the horns and showing God the parts of my soul I thought I had hidden away.  Years of rejection and of rejoicing.

Years of desire. Years of satiation. Grieving and giving and loving and living years.

Living years.

Six living years.

My six living years.

A little lifetime lived in six small years.

I’ve been walking on this earth for six years longer than I once planned on…but I cannot state how much in love I am with these past six long, blessed, beautiful and excruciating years.

Six years holding it’s breath for the seventh. Come what may.

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