One day not long ago...

...she was happy and she was content and she remembered who she was and she didn't need to know anything else but that truth.

She smiled and laughed and breathed in and out.

Where does that time go? How long does it last? Can she get it back?

Those are the questions she asks now. And part of her knows that the answers are pointed back to her and choices, decisions, fragments of possible paths in lives that she turned away from when she turned towards other lives. But sometimes, the urge for something real like what she must have known when she looks at pictures of herself when she was young, is overwhelming and devastating.

One day not long ago she had nothing to heal, no hurts to forgive, no abuse of anger to apologize for, not one blemish upon the perfection of who she was. And sometimes when she thinks the wounds are healed, the words have been said, the drama full-circle and complete and done - well, that's when it surprises her all the more for the madness that the seeming never-ending journey must have in store for her.

But she holds onto the hope that she finds in her own steady gaze staring at her from a time not so long ago.