Colorado Skies

Oh, tonight. Tonight the sky has outdone itself. I have been many, many places in this world and everywhere I've been I've laid myself out on the ground in the dark and examined the sky. There is no sky I love more than the one over Colorado. I was just outside, on my back, staring up at infinity and I felt so close to those clouds, those stars. Closer than anywhere in the world. I stretched my arms up above me fully expecting to wiggle my fingers in the big, fluffy night clouds and there were still miles and miles between us. And beyond those clouds, the stars. And beyond those stars the vast universe. And I wanted to leave my body and just rise, rise, rise and hold those stars close for awhile. But they were so far, still so far.

I desperately wished I had another soul next to me to share that with. Another soul that heard me when I spoke. Heard me when I didn't speak. Heard me. Then my dog appeared. And another dog. And yet another dog. Then she was there asking me if I was okay. Telling me I looked like I'd been punched. I told her I was fine but the truth is I have been punched. I've been beat up. I've been beat down. I am beat. She asked if I'd been roasting inside and I said no. Told her I was thinking about how to take over the world. She knew what I meant. She was the one who told me I could do it just hours before. She is the one who is giving me all the tools to do just that. But it is up to me to do it. It's easy to complain about your life and how you're a victim and how everyone else is standing in your path to greatness. But when everyone clears out, you clear them out, life clears them out, circumstance, whatever....and someone says here you go...here are the tools you need, just use them...well, that's a different story altogether. Now I have to use them. Now I am hopeful and desolate, full of ideas, full of despair. Life seems impossible in a wholly different way. Not because I am held back, held down, repressed....but because I am fetterless. I am free. I can do anything I want to do. I can do it now. Today. I may not have all the things I wish for but no one does. No one has everything. I can choose what I want and have that. I can at least have the things that please me, personally, me alone.

The problem is I have never wanted to be alone as desperately as I have wanted to be alone. I told her this afternoon that it's frightening how very much this life ahead of me is exactly the life I imagined for myself when I was a child. So now I can have that....what will I do? Will I succeed? Will I fail? How could I possibly fail?

Tonight, Colorado skies. Tomorrow, the world.