Sometimes I lose track of myself. I go here and there and forget what my beating heart feels like. I’m supposed to do all sorts of things—loud ugly things, small quiet things, things that want me stuffed in boxes and forgotten.
Then I remember to breath. Then I forget to listen to the other voices that want only one version of me—the one that’s easy to contain. Then I take in the heady sound of pages rustling—and find myself in stories.
In them, I mend my heart with words and narrative threads, revive the small flicker of hope that had dwindled inside my chest so that it is a healthy flame once again. I let go of hospital-cornered thoughts and the four by four confessional inside my head.
The world wants me heartbroken—I’m more palatable that way. Sometimes I think I would prefer myself heartbroken, too. Then I could blame things on ghosts and old houses and places I should never have gone when I didn’t know any better. Stupid mistakes made by a fearful girl.
But then I read. And I remember that I am a story without one wasted sentence—not one useless word. And I call my soul back to myself. Words, so many words and chapters and pages that have so much to tell. Some are spoken like a greeting while others are mere whispers like things best said under the cover of darkness. Then some…they don’t need breath but find themselves in the wide open space of things left unsaid.
Every step has a purpose. Every wrong turn was the right one at the time, like one scene seamlessly finding another. I tell myself these things and hope they are true. I make them true, the paperbacks stacked on my nightstand tangible proof that the best stories offer the most twists and turns. Satisfaction, meaning, soul comes from the unexpected.
So I must be truly soulful, for everything up until this moment has been a surprise.
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