The girl who lived on the lake

The last time I drove by
it hurt
to think back on her,
on me
not so long ago
but so long ago

I came that way again
turning my eyes to the lake
to see the changes
the new houses
the remodels
the spaces where
cabins once stood

In came a hundred
memories
of a twenty-something
party girl
who lived on the great wide and
green lake

What would she ask me?
I thought
What would she want to know
about who she would become,
who she would be becoming?

You'll be okay
I'd tell her,
then. now.
but you are taking a terribly
long way
to okay.
It's starting now
and you know
but you don't know

You will have a new life
while you're still both you
and a wife and a mom
and you will feel like both
and carry too much
of the now with you
then

The pit of your stomach
may never forget this
version of yourself,
broken
by yourself,
and not yourself
by he and them
and her and him

But your heart
will start to heal
long from now,
the now
on the lake,
and you will see
somehow
in the blue eyes
of boys that came from you
and him
that you are okay

Even good.
And the pit of your stomach
will make its twinges
a little less
as you drive around the lake
as yourself now,
you
who would not be she
without the girl who lived on the lake.


{freely written as an experiment to see what I would write in five minutes or less after a drive around the lake I lived on for a year many moons ago, a drive filled with emotion. It's quite a rough draft, so thank you for taking the time to attempt making sense of it. Happy Friday.}

This post is a part of Five for Ten at Momalom.