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The hot air clung to her skin the way a damp piece of silk lingers
before falling.
Skin moist with the heat of the end summer when it
refuses to release its grip.
Thoughts whirring in her mind like the
motor of the fan on the old dresser.
What if she could go back, back
before all of this.
Before the big move and the job in a the foreign
land.
She did love it there but her thoughts had a way of running
back through time on a Friday night.
Back before she bought the house
in a town she barely knew because the house was cheap and she was
desperate.
Back before the inheritance that sent her seeking security
in a property that would become the bane of her existence.
Winding
back before the injury that left her nearly homeless but a stroke of
luck gave her a wonderful couple years with her siblings.
Back before
she went seeking her education that refused to follow a sensible path
and left her with a degree in art, no one does that in midlife what
was she thinking.
Back before she was fed up and decided to leave
the only life she had known for 20+ years.
Before the pain of selling
the animals and quitting on a marriage that had never quite worked.
Her mind reeled and then said no, further back go all the way back.
Start over near the beginning what if everything had been different.
What if instead of being traumatized she had been supported.
What if
instead of being told she was never working, trying, or doing enough
what if she had been told its ok you are a child go play.
What if she
had learned to play, to relax, to unmask when young.
What if life
had taken a completely different road. The wish of something less
difficult.
Then like a flash of lightning in the midst of a storm she reels back into her body, the ceiling the fan blade turning, the heat clinging to her and she remembers she has often gotten everything she ever wished for and some of the other things along the way pushed or lead to what she said she wanted.
But that didn’t stop her from wishing she had never had the trauma.
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