My family, especially my mom, always thought I was a dreamer and told me I needed to keep my feet on the ground. I never understood the harm in escaping into a dream world filled with possibilities, where you can neatly avoid ever being hurt, disappointed or have your spirit annihilated. But the danger - I am discovering - is when you come back into reality and you no longer have the invisible sheild and you are only fragile flesh and blood again. Your pain has the advantage then of sneaking up and surprising you.
When it seemed to take forever to arrive at this milestone that my life is crossing, I assumed it had to be because something extra special was waiting for me at the end of the long, hard road. And I'd had my head up in the clouds for so long I guess my vision was still misty. I came to the crossroads and one path seemed perfect, ordained, God's special gift for His whiny daughter who'd waited so long for her happily ever after. So I smiled and spread my imaginary wings and flew happily in that direction.

Over the course of my long career as an insecure, lonely, overweight woman - I had collected many scars and fissures on my soul from injuries inflicted both carelessly and deliberately. I'd survived them all because I had conjured an ending to my ordeal that would make up for all the bruising and the slow stewing pain in a brand new beginning to the rest of my life. And for a short while down my chosen path, it seemed like my magic was strong - that the path I had chosen did indeed have the power to seal those cracks, heal the scars and make me whole.

Since then the mists have cleared and I have fought again and again to breathe life into the vision of my rosiest dreams of being accepted, loved, cherished forever exactly how I am.
Instead I think the combined weight of my expectations and my desperation squeezed out the last of the pink mists shrouding my reality. In a short time I have learned the urgent need to shut the door on the alluring alternate world where somebody like me gets something simply by wanting it bad enough. I chose this path when it was shrouded in sparkling visions of perfection and now that my rose colored glasses have been broken, I see that its going to be hard going from here on out. Ironically, it might even be harder than the draining trek I made to get this far!

But this is not really a bad situation. Seeing clearly has many more advantages than the false promises of the land of mists. Perhaps I have finally finally grown up. I think this because I realize two things - one that this is a dry eyed revelation and two - I know now what was wrong with the rosy picture I had pinned all my hopes on. So far I had not expected to need to actually DO anything to get to a point of poise, comfort, acceptance and love. And I acknowledge - perhaps for the first time in my life - that the reason my life, my road has not improved is because I have been waiting for the world around me to get gentler, grow a heart, be less shallow, love me without conditions. I have woken up to the fact that the world is NEVER going to change, not even the most beloved parts of it. The only changes I can affect are changes I make to myself. And when I have grown, changed, transformed enough to satisfy myself, I think I might be ok if the rest of the world didnt share my view.

Until then, I thank God for the new lessons I have learned - that there is liberation in being grounded, there is a joy that I can count on which comes from within myself and that the secret to having everything you want is to only want what you can get for yourself.