The backroads beckoned. Although the day was overcast, or rather in spite of the grayness that enveloped everything that lay before her, she was determined to find what she was looking for. That nameless something she hoped would jar loose the fragments of discord tethered to her soul. So she set out with nothing more than a tank full of gas and an assurance all four tires were properly inflated.

As she drove, contemplations of just what it was she was seeking caused an unease, a disquiet. She became aware that her aimless wanderings could not achieve that which she wasn’t quite able to identify.

Eventually, she came to understand that To DO is what really matters. The rest will fall into place. Trusting the process, trusting herself, was all that she really required.

Daily Prompt: Gray

So, what’s this now? This anxiety about tasks not yet completed, about the day getting away from me. With all my talk of time seen now from an entirely new – and foreign – perspective, how is it that my heart is quickening when I consider what needs to be done, should be, ought to be done? Oceans of time, remember?

I tell myself it’s because I’m not feeling at the top of my game right now. My hands and wrists, sometimes even my feet, thrum with a constant, dull, relentless ache. Pain. And so little energy. I hope it’s nothing more than that. Just a spike in how my body behaves itself, treats itself, in spite of itself.

To cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

Sunshine, flowers, warm breezes. Curiosity and eagerness – anticipation! – returned. I have to believe it to be so. That it will be, again.

Daily Prompt: Spike

She kept a list of names, revisited from time to time. In her naivete, she reviewed her enumerations with a dangerous, misplaced sense of pride. Accomplishment ~ almost. It was her way of keeping the reality of her life in good stead with how she wished to explain it, accept it, justify (twist it?) to herself. The truth, however, was a deceit. She did not, could not, know. Decades later, she is more tender and forgiving of her earlier transgressions although she can scarcely believe the same being – inside of her now – had done those things all those years ago.

Maybe everyone is able to relate, she thought. Perhaps others own similar cringeworthy moments but she doubts – no, she knows – that those in her circle cannot possibly share this same history of regret, of disappointment of self. How is it that she’s recovered so well? Maybe she never really has. Or does she simply possess no conscience whatsoever? Then again, maybe she’s just pragmatic and understands that that was then, this is now.

People can and do change. They are changing all the time.

Who will she be tomorrow?