Two Years

"..sometimes the only way to make it through
with hearts and wrists intact
is to realize
that two out of three ain't bad.."

Dear lonely isle,

When you're down on the ground, sometimes life kicks you in the stomach and shoves sand into your mouth.

And sometimes, life extends a hand.

There are times when things go from bad to worse, and then there are times when it seems luck has not totally forsaken you yet.

The thing is, we can never tell if it's just gonna drizzle, or if it's gonna pour.

But we can try to prepare for all eventualities. Some of us carry pepper spray in our handbags when we go out, and others keep a club under the bed.

Some of us close off our hearts.

Leaving behind all you hold dear to venture off into foreign land is akin to stabbing yourself in the heart and watch yourself bleed to death on the floor. Being mortally wounded as so, it's hard sometimes to open up to new places, and new faces.

Some have it easier than others, some have it going tough. But nothing is quite as tough as going it alone.

To shut yourself in, taking in everything new; weird, bizarre, strange, unpleasant, foreign - by yourself. You're alone because you're the only one in your heart.

Every moment shared is twice the memory, and every fear shared is half the burden.
Every step taken together is already half the journey.

There's a big difference knowing that you can go home to someone waiting to hear about your day, and going home to an empty room. Just like there's a difference knowing there's someone at the other end of the line you can cry to who won't judge you and no one picking up the phone. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Sometimes what makes life a bit more bearable is being able to be honest. Not just to the ones you left behind, but also to the ones you face tomorrow. To be able to laugh or to smile, and to know it comes from the heart, and to be able to cry, and know that it's okay even when you're not alone. In the bathroom. Or in your room in the dark. When everyone else is asleep.

Sometimes you feel like you put your life on hold, an imaginary hand pushing the imaginary Pause button, when you step into that airplane and leave behind your true self. And that everytime you touch down, you put on a mask. And sometimes, I wonder why.

And like a child taking first steps, I find myself learning how to trust once more. To slowly be able to walk with others. I've learnt that shadows are just shadows, and even though sometimes the lights can make them look really long, they only get as dark and as scary as you let them be.

Because there will always be shadows, and there will always be dark corners.
But there will only be fear for as long as you allow yourself to be afraid.

Sometimes the difference between yesterday and today is only a matter of perspective. But then again, that’s what’s been differentiating then from now, what makes then become then, and the you in the mirror today, now.

This is my life.
It's time I lived it.

All of it.

No matter where I am.

My flight from home is only two and a half hours long, but it took me two years to get here.

love, Joyce.