A Gilded Butterfly

timing (witwicke)

“people are people and sometimes it doesn’t work out.”

for the year i was sick, the only way i could experience life was through the glass windows that were built for a hospital but were used as prison walls to keep patients in. Test after test, instays, emergency visits, hospital transports; I spent more time in the hospital than I did anywhere else in the last year.

But now that I’m recovering, I don’t have to stand behind the glass windows that separated me like a canyon from the life I wanted to live. As soon as my operation was over, I realized that I’d been a windowshopper in my own life for the entirety of my life. I did the right things at the right times and waited for some cliche “after i’m done with my goals” time to do things that weren’t directly connected to my resume or 7 year track for law school. as impressive as my resume can be, if you were to write a resume of the things i’d done that i’d wanted to, it’d be nearly empty. i concentrated solely on law school, law internships, getting a job, supporting my family; i didn’t stop and breathe or think about how life is passing me by and i only get this one chance to live.

As soon as I was free from my disease (the worst type of prison), I took this realization and lived my life the best way i could. while it may not seem like much to others, to me, I did all of the things I had always wanted to do but never did because it wasn’t responsible or i could take an extra class at that time. so I got my nose pierced. I bought that overpriced perfume that I had always wanted but was too sensible to buy. I ate carbs. I stayed out too late on a night that I shouldn’t have. I opted not to do an optional reading assignment (that’s badass for me fuck you).

i also learned an important lesson about the type of life i wanted to live. i never wanted to have something worth losing, but once you’re faced with the possibility that you can’t have your life anymore, resumes and 7 year plans for law school just don’t seem as important as they did before. 

i promised myself that i wouldn’t let the fear of getting hurt intervene when opportunities came my way. recently, an opportunity in the form of an honest boy from the other side of the country crashed into my life like a train accident. 

The fear of getting hurt remained (old habits die hard) but this time when the opportunity came up, instead of running in the opposite direction (my normal reaction), i sat and had a conversation and opened myself to the possibility of getting hurt.

i had lived my life never wanting anything worth losing, but i’ve realized life is just a slideshow of experiences. if an experience is a picture, then pain paints the most vivid pictures of all, the pictures that change the entire mood of the slideshow, of the whole experience. i’ve been given a second chance at life, and although i still don’t believe in conventional love, that doesn’t mean i won’t try to open myself up, fall in love, get hurt, and begin a slideshow of experiences that i should have begun 21 years ago.

lauren