If we ask ourselves where our happiest place is...I’d think back to a morning by my dock in Montana. The breeze was cool and my coffee warmed up my palms. The water lay still as the pelicans scooped up fish for breakfast from the lake. I could sit there for hours, meditating on the trickling air that swayed across my skin from side to side.

When we end something...when things get buried and put us in an uncomfortable place again... We are transmitted into our dreams...we want to escape to that morning in Montana... Our safe places far away from the place we are at now.

The world is changing all around me and I’m not longer in control. My tears stream down my face at the most inopportune moments... At a stop light or waiting in line at Trader Joes. I’m not in control...but time and space keep pushing me forward.
It seems we are all similarly displaced within ourselves. Some of us embrace the dark places – I call you the strong ones. You will pull yourself out of the fire like a phoenix rising from some emotional ashes of love lost. You are the “good eggs”... The fighters.

As I grow and learn to protect that woman sitting on a lake...vulnerable to the elements around her... I grow to isolate myself further from those around me. Complaints, being too busy, indifference... It’s all a mask that I put on to keep the wind from knocking me down. Can’t hurt me if I complain about that before you even do it... Can’t hurt me if you can’t catch me.

What if I just stood there. Just let you in... And then you left? At least this way... I can't say you left because of who I really am with no mask on.