“I’m not waiting,”

She turned away to face the skyline, the summer sunset gave her silhouette a warm glow.

“I can’t just sit and hold my breath anymore. I’ve had such colossal dreams…and I could never figure out how to take the first steps…”

Her eyes cast down to the ground.

“I wanted your help. I wanted all of you with me. I felt like I couldn’t do it by myself. I felt like I could not do anything…”

She lifted her head and turned to face you again, her eyes shooting sparks into the shadows of your heart.

“But you were never the answer for me. No one was. Every person I have ever met was just as lost as I was, in their own dark forest of the heart. And the more I tried to lean on you, on anyone, the more I got let down. I lost so much trust. I started to believe I wasn’t worthy, wasn’t wanted. I felt like no one could help me…”

Her trembling lip cracked into a grin and as her smile reached up to lift the corners of her eyes a single tear rolled down one cheek.

“…and that was the best thing that ever could have happened. It’s the truth. And as much as I feared coming upon such a truth, once I recognized it as it was, I stopped resisting it. There was nothing left to fight…”

She glanced over her shoulder again, as the Sun slipped behind the trees.

“I stopped my frantic searching. I knew what I was looking for was not anywhere out there. It hurt, it hurt a lot, but….I just stopped. Everything stopped. I had to really sit with myself and take a good look at what was going on, and…”

Her voice broke just for a moment, with a breathy whimper and a sigh.

“…I saw it all. I saw my insecurity, the human frailty I had pushed so far back. All the pain I had hidden myself away from. The guilt. The shame. I didn’t know there would be so much shame…”

A bird sang a lonely song in the distance.

“It was such an avalanche of stories and sensations. It kept me knocked back and kneeled before my broken pieces for such a long time. I felt like I was reliving all of it. I thought I was in over my head, I tried to stuff some of it back down, but then….I don’t know….something just snapped.”

She smiled at you again, radiating a warmth from deep inside that seemed to cast aside the chill of the approaching night.

“I guess I hit the bottom of the pile, and underneath that mess of monsters and nightmares I found myself.”

Her cheeks flushed ever so slightly.

“That’s the only way I can think to describe it. That is all it was. I spent so much time waiting for some magical person or some moment of epiphany to lift me out of my inadequacy, it didn’t even occur to me that my longing, my sense of something missing came from something so simple.”

She leaned back, letting her weight rest on her arms outstretched behind her.

“And then I knew, I really knew that it was going to be okay. That I would be just fine. And there are still problems, life is a series of challenges, right? But…I don’t feel afraid anymore. I am not afraid to see where I am really at. To take my own steps, even if I stumble….”

The sky darkened, and the frogs in the pond could be heard in the quiet of the twilight.

“So I have not been waiting anymore. I know that I don’t need to. I know that I don’t need anyone….but I am glad that you are here, now.”

She leaned in a little closer, spoke a bit more softly.

“It is nice to be remembered. And I want you to know that I understand…”

And she took your hand.