Happily Ever After

It took a long time for her to understand. It took a long time to let go of her ideas and rules and plans so the truth could finally settle in. This is life. This is it. It’s not somewhere up ahead, a goal to press towards with degrees or achievements or measurable conquests. It’s ever unfolding, like an endless ocean that stretches wider and grows more beautiful the farther you row. It took a long time to taste it, because she spent so many years striving – to be good, to be right, to be safe – trying so hard to respect the fragility of a ‘happily ever after’ that she never really got to the ‘once upon a time’. But now she is tasting it. Now she’s lived a bit of a life. And it’s not always been sweet. She’s choked on her mistakes and crinkled her nose at the bitterness of pain. But she’s also been drunk on pleasure, and dizzy in love, and awed by grace. And because she’s allowing it all, she’s starting to understand. This is it. Life doesn’t happen in the shallows. Life happens in the willingness to drown, and the ever-renewed discovery that you can and will swim again.

©️ 2023 Cristen Writes