Can you be alone with yourself and like the company you keep in empty moments?

My house is usually a beacon of light in the darkness resulting from either someone having fallen asleep on the couch or a general lack of energy savings awareness on the part of one certain teenager. But tonight she has gone to bed and flipped all the switches. The house is silent, not even my dogs bark, but it is alive with sweet, warm energy.

I drop my gym bag and over sized black leather purse onto the chaise and I go about my nightly routine. Checking locks, closing shades, turning on nightlights, feeding the dogs. The routine is comforting. Especially after today. It feels good to do something that I do every night. It brings be clarity even as I feel emotionally crippled. My head hurts from sobbing. My contacts are fuzzy from tears. And the actual pain from a breaking heart is fresh in my chest. 

Don't you know, silly girl, that you can't call it a year without doing something you knew better than to do?

My room is a wreck but I dive into my unmade bed and ignore the total chaos. I have three books on my nightstand. My bible, A water wrinkled, page stained copy of The Invitation, and a book of prayers.When I feel this way I usually reach for my bible but I know there is a line in The Invitation that my mind is so trying to grasp right now. 

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive...I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow; if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

My breathing is calm and even now. I'm not afraid to love. Deeply, faithfully, and with everything I have. I should remember more often that not everyone has the same character as me. But I know that I will love them anyway. I don't know any other way to be. I am not still so young that I believe love conquers everything but I do believe that you will never know what it can do unless you feel it and live it and let it show in all that you do.

I forgot my water bottle in the car. As I step into the night air the porch light clicks on. Sometime today 3 new roses and a whole line of wildflowers have bloomed in the small garden along the sidewalk. So much delicate beauty. And in all its fragile states, life goes on. As I stood in front of the rose bush like a modern version of Snow White with less birds, less evil step mothers, and better clothes I was absolutely sure of one thing:

Someday my prince will come. 

Goodnight beautiful world,

Sara.