Monday morning. That kind of Monday that everybody would cancel for an undetermined period. Not her though.
She wakes up without the regular voices in her head. For the first time, there’s silence there. No pain, no longing, no exhaustion. Nothing other than peace. It feels good. Her shoulders now feel like flakes, she stretches her body and stares in the mirror.
For the first time in more than 9 years, she looks at the sign on her chest, touches it, and sees it as a tattoo. Life has painted a tattoo on her chest to remind her of her second birth. For the first time in 9 years, the touch of it no longer feels like a punishment. Everything looks and feels different today. Her hair is shiny, her skin glows, her lips sing incessantly.
It’s a rainy day today. She’s in the mood for a walk in the park nearby. She takes her headphones and connects her beating soul to the rhythm. “It’s a good day to make decisions”, she thinks, and she starts to walk. Step by step, gaze by gaze, lyric by lyric, she moves forward. She chooses to be well, to grow; she chooses to remain wild but gentle at the same time: she loves paradoxes. She herself is one of them: she looked death in the eye more than 4 times, but she wanted to live so much that death had no choice but to retreat waving her goodbye.
Funny thing – choices. She chooses (to choose) herself over everything else, starting now. It’s a choice she makes every second and she’s owning it. Fully. She chooses to start to be the main character in her life, in her story.
Her thoughts are interrupted by a short, bold “hi”. She suddenly comes to her senses. There he was, 2 years later, standing in front of her as if nothing had happened.
“How are you?” he asks while she doesn’t have any reaction. She can’t decide whether to ignore him or to slap him. She chooses a third option: “Hi. I’m fine, thank you.”
“It’s been a long time”, he continues. “Yes, indeed.”, she replies.
They look at each other like they did 4 years ago when they first met.
“I was on my way to grab a coffee and something to eat, would you care to join me?” he asks her. She stares at him in silence, blinking from time to time. “It would be nice to hear more from you. How have you been?”, he insists. “Pretty lonely, she says, but that’s not a bad thing at all. I’ve had time to put my thoughts in order, to change and grow, and now I’m a whole new person.”
“Sounds interesting, I would like to meet the new you”, he says.
She smiles and states: “You wouldn’t like the new me. She’s just… out of your league.”
He nods his head in resignation and dares to put her chestnut hair behind her left ear, just like he used to in the past. She stops breathing for a second. It still has that effect on her.
“It was nice seeing you”, he says.
She forces a smile.
He approaches her: “Loneliness comes and go”, he whispers while hugging her.
“So do people”, she said, and she let go.
Rain was falling. She was rising.