I used to be a catalog of doubt but now I am a catalog of hope.  

I used to be a green switch my parents made me pull off a tree when I was in bad trouble but now I am laying on a bench, watching the branches sway as the wind blows.  

I used to be four taxis, two airplanes, and a rented car that smoked over new mountain roads to an uncertain house whose moldering walls were not mine. Now I am a home full of books and memories and a special tea set I reserve just for company. 

I used to run all the time but now I sit in the muck of it, you know, until the muck settles, and my toes leave prints at the soft mud bottom, and I start to see the little fishies swimming around my ankles. 

I used to cry a lot, and I still cry a lot, though the crying happens for different reasons. It’s not always sadness. Sometimes it’s because a strange and beautiful song I’ve never heard before strikes me. Sometimes a baby smiling makes the whole world right and my heart crack open to light. How can it not? 

I used to hope for rainbows after it rained but now, I take a walk in the drizzle, study the slants, sometimes let myself get soaked by a downpour – like the time I rode my bike through a torrential storm I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it through, my arms hairs bristling, and my shoes sloshing cold as I peddled fiercely through deep puddles on the path. I prayed and I prayed the lightning wouldn’t strike down, and it didn’t. I peddled and peddled, ran my bike up the stairs and into my apartment. I went to the door to look back over the direction I’d come from. It was a sky full of dark roiling clouds. I held the railing of my porch, heart pounding, wondering if I’d do it again. 

Yeah. I’d do it again.