I'm not sure how to start this. I want to start with the shivering breaths, the teary smiles, the fake laughter, the sadness creeping behind her eyes. I want to start with how she would stare and stare into nothing but oblivion, wondering what brought her there and why her feet just wouldn't move. I want to start with how she felt nothing and everything at the same time, how her emotions would rush at her like an angry pack, guilt, fear, shame, sadness, anxiety, all in one breath!
I won't start with that. I'll start at the end. Where she is now. At peace, breathing, feeling, happy, happy at last. She smells the roses, and they don't sting her eyes like they always did. They told her malice was heavy, but she didn't realise how much burden she had been carrying all this while, dragging it with her, refusing to let go. Refusing to just be. Now she is, and the malice is not. The sadness is not. She just is. Alive at last!
And the middle? The middle was messy. It was scary. She saw herself go. She saw that little girl, that perfect girl fade away like the smiles on her face when all souls had left the room and she was all that was left. She saw her fears fade away, and like a Frozen Princess, she embraced her wilderness, building castles from her ice, majestic and extravagant, beauty for her and her alone. She had let go of all she loved and there was nothing to fear anymore. There was nothing to be frightened of anymore. And so she let go.
It all comes together somewhere at the end, the middle and if you're like Him, the all-seeing King, you'd see it at the beginning too. But it all comes together. She's grateful for the strike. She's grateful for the chance they gave her to get off the loud frightening ride. She's grateful for the time she has to just breathe. She's grateful for the time to think and cry and write and read and be. She's grateful for the time to get it all together. Because she knows now that even if it doesn't always look like it, in the end, it all comes together.