107_yroldvirgin Week 98: Life Off the Page

107_yroldvirgin
Tuesday

Picture 1


Picture 2


107_yroldvirgin’'s Choice: Picture 2

Title: Life Off the Page

“What do you want to be?” My mother would ask when I was younger.

A girl with blood that sings.

With bow and arrow.

With the inability to sit still.

There was a time in my life when I was content to live someone else’s life. Where, reading about adventurous young women doing extraordinary things, loving deeply, living greatly, was enough. Maybe I was willing to live through them to save myself the pain. The longing, the hurt, the stress that came with making the decisions that needed to be made in order to reach the Happily Ever After.

Until him. Bright blue eyes and electric smile.

Until them. Arms wide open to invite me in.

Then one day, the books and stories were no longer enough. Loving on paper and living through metaphor was simply a sad excuse for not making my own way and finding my own self. He’d helped me see that I could be adventurous, too. That I could love just as deeply, if not more, than some other person could describe for me.

And as five of us crested the top of a cliff, hearts beating out of chest, warm air filling overexerted lungs, adrenalin pumping through live-wire veins ... I was the girl in those books. Alive. Living my own life full of my own adventures. No longer content to be alone with books, but out in the open with arms spread wide to the ever - open skies faces upturned to smile at beauty unsurpassed by words on a page or screen.

“What do you want to be?” My mother would ask.

With a whisper to the wind on my skin, I replied, “Anything.”