I will bring you water.

It is ingrained in us,
the image of a perfect life.
It consists of a house behind a white picket fence, some beds of tulips by the door.
A slobbering dog, a pretty little laughing girl, maybe two, a strapping young boy.
A Mother and a Father wrapped arm in arm watching over the perfection they have created, smiling, beaming with pride.
Tidy and neat and perfect, unbreakable.
This is not the life that I was born into.
In a perfect world, this would have been mine - but nothing is perfect - in fact most things are askew - life is a journey to discover what YOUR perfect you is, and.... to fight for it. Dream it. Believe it.
I have found that my life, (as you all know) is an obstacle course, a never ending maze of discovery, challenges, hurdles, loss and most importantly - dreams.
In all the pain, in all the darkness, I have never lost my desire to dream big, aspire high - imagine that the balance of this world's ugly and beauty can manifest into a place where what you hope for, a peace in the space between, literally - becomes...
From behind the glass panes of my kitchen window, hands submerged in soapsuds, scrubbing the remnants of endless meals,
I have gazed into the sunrise and sunset of everyday, dreaming of my dreams, seeing them open ended, praying that one day I will feel them come to fruition - transfer from a longing to tangibility....
I fought to unlearn hating myself.
I fought to re-light the darkness of grief.
I fought to see a whole person in the mirror, rather than one half of something completely foreign and unrecognizable.
I fought to have skin where there was wounded flesh.
Fought to walk through the doors of my education and prove that these words in me are not crazy, they are love and they belong and they are wanted by those who are like me.
I fought to get up off the crying kitchen floor and put one of my dainty feet in front of the other and dance to the beat of my own drum - the soundtrack of my own perfect life.
I have done it - and I am ready.
I have a beautiful woman to thank, for believing in me and my dreams when I argued with her that they were stupid- reeled against them, tried to deny them, sabotaged them and accepted less than myself - which is, the dream. I am the dream - and she knew it all along and never gave up the war - never refused to carry my wounded self to safety, never did not nurse me back to a fighter stance, a warrior in a battle with only myself and no one else, never said Uncle - I give - just put down the shield and walk away.
I love her more than I can articulate - even at my best, which is clearly not today....
Today I sit before these keys, overwhelmed with emotions I could not sort if I wanted to - and the truth is, I really just don't.
There is a new peace in the frenzy of my fingers - there is not a lesson or a moral to my method, there is not a story or a punchline to my rant.
There is love.
Just love....
We are assaulted, we girls, with images of fairy tales - It starts with the picket fence and a beautiful loving Mother, it ends with a white horse, a dashing man - a castle in the enchanted wood.
We are doomed from childhood to only see ourselves this way - the swooning Cinderella type.
God do I swoon.....
I have heard from vast numbers about true love....How it reaches out from the utter cornflower blue sky, punches put sudden from behind a cloud and grabs you - cupid and an arrow, or some shit - one magical kiss and you know....
I have never put much stock in this - I have instead been sweeping up messy floors, picking up trash in dresses, hoping to will a Pulitzer Prize one day, teach my kids values that count, emulate MLK and exude if nothing else a kindness that is pervasive to every life I touch.
Princes are in England not in my world.....
And I won't even tell you that I have met a prince because that would go against my ideals of womanhood, our strength, our power, our messy Goddess-ness.
I have however, met my counterpoint in the Universe.
If I am fixed here in this very DEB place, than he is at the other end of the high wire - he will come across to me - me to him - meet me in the middle or just watch me as I pace back and forth with no real destination in mind, shaking his head saying "that's my girl"
I know this with all of my heart and I am blown away....
I am just plain blown away.
I did not see him coming, but now that he is here - he is all I see.
Because - in him, in his eyes - I see me, the other half of my soul.
you guys know me - I'm a spaz.
now I am a spaz in love.