Downbeat

I am waiting on the downbeat of my heart.
The silence and anticipation of stories to be lived.
I am already filled with the music that I know:
The melodies of forgiveness, grace, compassion, pain.
I am waiting on the downbeat of my heart to hear a new song being played.
A limerick to lead the way
I am waiting on the downbeat of my heart.

It has come. I sat silently all summer not knowing how to be, who I really am or what comes next, but it has come. There are times in life where we stand on the precipice of everything we are and everything we can be. The decision to truly step into yourself or your happiness should never be scary, and yet is often paralyzing. I stand today, one foot forward over the ledge, and wonder, with no good offering, why I would accept anything less. I love you is not something I often extend myself. There is a real crossroads, it’s not a myth, it’s not just in fairy tales, but there is a moment where you can stay the same or you can leap. In the choosing you might again slip off the earth, but you chose.

My favorite part of any musical is the orchestra downbeat. Or rather the moment before that when anticipation hangs in the air.
What is this story? Will I like the journey it takes me on? Can I succumb and travel away? Will I slip off the earth?

I feel we, the many, are faced with new journeys born of necessity. That if we are willing to stand on tectonic plates in motion, we have the opportunity to slide right into our fantasies. To shake up our reality. You see I never realized, until I did, that there was a rusty nail anchoring my feet to the earth. In the moment I was ready to pull it; I was fearful. In the moment I pulled it; I was in pain. In the moment after; I felt elated. I am free. I am free to explore the version of myself that has not yet moved through me. Fantasies not born of rules and old thought patterns. Fantasies that joyously race past the highway of noise in my head. Fantasies beyond the limbo of my manmade precipice. You see I could not before see the nail, but now I feel the wings.

I am in the downbeat of my heart.