The writing’s on the wall, brothers
Your life is in your hands.
It’s up to you to see the writing’s on the wall
I hope that you may see the writing’s on the wall.
George Harrison, “Writing’s On The Wall”

I’ve written and re-written the beginning of this post no less than half a dozen times already, but no matter how many different ways I type the words or how often I say it out loud, even I can’t quite believe it’s real. Life has begun to change for me the past couple of weeks, though it’s a welcomed  change, and over the course of this time, new dreams have taken shape, lessons have been learned and tested, and emotions have become exhausted.

There’s been so much I’ve wanted to write about with all of this, so much I’ve wanted to share, yet I’ve been afraid to speak these words out-loud, afraid to smile too broadly, afraid to laugh too loud. Somehow, I’ve convinced myself that if I kept it a secret, then this newfound happiness couldn’t be taken away from me, that the dream wouldn’t slip from within my grasp. I was afraid that something would happen, that something would change, as things so quickly seem to do. While I’ve been running head-first into this adventure, as this dream turns into reality with every passing hour, there’s a part of me that’s terrified that it’s merely the dreamer in me speaking, that the dream will be shattered, somehow, if I even dare whisper the words to the world.

And so I kept it to myself as much as I could, while inside I’ve been a mess of emotions: frustration at not being entirely in control of the situation, having to leave this fate in others’ hands; patience — never really my strong suit in the first place — being tried as the days pass to weeks and those weeks go by; anticipation and excitement coursing through every vein in my body as I plan, dream, wonder about my future — a future that feels so close at hand.

Yet, never once, despite all of these emotions, has there been even the smallest shred of doubt that this isn’t the right decision, that this isn’t meant to be, that this is the next step on my journey:

I’m buying a house.

A house. I’m buying a house. A house with a fenced-in yard for Riley and all of the charm and history I could have ever wanted. A house where friends will join me for cookouts and movie nights in and family will come for long dinners, building new memories as we share the old with smiles and laughter. A house where responsibility lies in my open hands, where I can grow and learn and become the adult I have always, always longed to be, the woman that has been in there, inside of me, just waiting for time and age to catch up to her.

A house where my life — my very heart and soul — will be written on the walls.

A house that will become a home.

* * * * * * *

Note: This has been a long and emotional process, and one I’ve been longing to write about for some time now. In the next few weeks, I hope to share what has led me to this point in my life, what this dream means to me, and who I believe has helped guide me here — even if they’re only here in spirit. Until then: Thanks for your patience and understanding through the somewhat silent route this blog has taken, thanks for your support and encouragement, and, most importantly, thank you simply for you — the past two years have been a tremendous learning curve and I doubt my life would have been the same without this blog, without this community, without you, my friends.

Maybe there’s a chance for me to go back there
Now that I have some direction
It would sure be nice to be back home
Where there’s love and affection.

And just maybe I can convince time to slow up
Giving me enough time in my life to grow up
Time be my friend, let me start again…
The Wiz, “Home”

My memories of summertime as a child consist of playing flashlight tag in the dark with my neighborhood friends and catching fireflies in a coffee can or glass mason jar. We had family barbecues and church picnics, and when the heat clung to our bare legs like a second skin, we chased each other around the yards with Super Soaker 500s and filled water balloons primed for maximum impact.

Echoing screams of delight faded as the last remnants of daylight gave way to night, as we put on our nightgowns and burrowed our feet beneath the cold, crisp sheets of our beds. The glow of the lamp bathed the room in warmth, and the low murmuring of the television downstairs, siblings talking across the hall, made everything feel comfortable and safe and…like home. The turning pages of a book became the only thing we were aware of as the world slipped away and we sought peace from our imaginations before slowly, slowly, even that fell away to our dreams.

Sometimes I think I would give anything to go back to that time — those years when, for three months, time stood still. It seemed so simple then. So light, so easy…

So permanent.

But maybe that’s only the memory speaking. Maybe that’s the longing of something so light, so easy, so simple. Something so safe and assured.

Maybe that’s only the missing speaking — missing people and places and a time that can’t ever be replicated; missing the feeling of comfort and safety and simplicity that marked those childhood days, that won’t — and can’t — come again. At least, not as it was back then when your mother’s voice called you in the dark and you came running to the back door, ready to end the day, knowing there would always be a next.

Now, the only thing I’m certain of is how uncertain life can be. Life changes with every skip of a heartbeat and I find myself thinking, this heart is beating too fast and not fast enough.

I know that I have to learn to appreciate time as it is. Every day is different from the last, with a future that quickly becomes the past and a present that changes the future. Every day there are changes,  new chances, and while you may not even be aware of it, with every heartbeat, you’re changing, too.

Sometimes, though…Sometimes, I just want it all to remain the same.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m capable of handling anymore change.

I think I’m scared. The life I’ve always dreamed of is right there on the horizon, about to become a beautiful reality. I’ve become a person I’m proud to be, becoming the woman I’ve always felt was within me, just waiting for life and time to catch up to her. And yet, while I’m so eager for this so-called new life to begin, tonight I feel there’s so much holding me back, so much that still haunts me, like there’s so much healing and learning left to do.

I find myself scared that I will inadvertently sabotage myself and my chance at this happiness.

Sometimes, I think I would give anything to take a step back, to put all those pieces of the past back together again. No broken hearts, no wondering about a future that you can’t control, and no terrible heartache that comes with saying goodbye forever.

Sometimes, I wish life would slow down, that the moments would last forever.

And yet, sometimes, I wish life would speed up, that the future I’ve longed for could be right within my grasp, certain, unbending, without a chance of changing…

I feel like I’m balancing Time — standing on a precarious, emotional edge with the innocence of childhood to my back and a vast unknown spread out in front of me.

Tonight, I long for a missed past while anxiously preparing for a long-awaited future.

Tonight, I wish, more than anything, for that comforting voice to call me in from the dark, ready to embrace me in words of comfort and confidence as the day draws to a close.

And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives
Where we’re gonna be when we turn 25.
I keep thinking times will never change,
Keep on thinking things will always be the same…
Graduation (Friends Forever), Vitamin C

It was early September, right after we moved into this house from New York, that I first met them. I must have been playing outside at the time because all I remember is the grumble of wheels rolling over pavement as they pulled the red wooden wagon closer to my driveway. I was just about to turn four years old and, as fate would have it, about to meet my first best friends.

We lived one behind the other, separated by a border of thinly blossoming trees in my own backyard and then a street on the other side of her house. A neighborhood full of children for us to play with was exactly what my parents longed for when we moved here, but all I knew (and cared about) growing up were the lemonade stands with hardly any traffic, the t-ball games that had my dad throwing the pitches, and the secrets-that-weren’t-really-secrets-at-all whispered into the dark as we burrowed beneath our sleeping bags.

These were my friends — the boys and girls who lived in a three block radius, who could regularly be called out for a game of flashlight tag or capture the flag across the yards. These were my best friends — the two girls who lived behind me and on the next street over, who shared wishes at birthday parties and who held our hand when the yellow schoolbus came into view.

They taught me what friendship meant, and I believe that they set the standard for every relationship going forward. Through them I had my first lesson in what it meant to be a friend.

And through them I had my first lesson in letting go.

She moved away to another neighborhood when we were in elementary school; we  tried to keep our promise to always be best friends, and for awhile, we were. We attended each other’s birthday parties and on summer afternoons, we roller skated on her new driveway while belting out the songs of Annie (much to her mother’s chagrin, I’m sure). But she was a year ahead of me in school and now in another district, and soon the days that we would visit each other became fewer and fewer.

I still cut through her old backyard, the property that edged to the back of my own, on my way to meet the curly-haired girl I was still lucky enough to have nearby. Though the three of us had all been close, she and I were inseparable. We filled our days playing Kingdom on black plastic garbage bags full of clothes that piled high in her basement or on the wooden swingset in the corner of my backyard; we spent Friday nights at her house where I watched in awe as they observed Shabbat before we raced outside to capture the summertime fireflies.

I was there when her brother was named; she was there at my first communion party. We attended the same summer camp, were in the same classes at school, and a birthday wasn’t a birthday without her to help celebrate.

When we turned thirteen, I attended her Bat Mitzvah, but by the time I was confirmed, we had already grown apart.

I never understand how things could change so much, so fast. Especially during the shifting years of adolescence, when emotions ran high and life-comprehension and experience was low, I couldn’t understand that things wouldn’t always forever be the same. A best friend, I thought I had learned, was a best friend. I never once believed that a friendship could fade.

Which is why I think the hurt ran so deep when I realized that ours had.

But I couldn’t have known this then. At ten years old, all I knew was that she was spending less and less time with me and more and more time with the neighbor girl that bordered her own backyard. I remember there were fewer sleepovers, fewer after-school rushes to play at each other’s houses, and fewer phone calls. I remember choosing partners for projects in school…

And the first time we didn’t choose each other.

Despite these changes, there was never any ill-will between us, and slowly that deep sense of hurt and rejection, that sense of first loss, dissipated as new friendships were formed. Throughout middle school we remained friends as we formed our separate groups and discovered new best friends; in high school we shared smiles and laughter and waves of hello as we chatted in class or passed in the halls. And when we graduated, our class celebrating the end of one journey, we shared a hug and a promise to keep in touch — a promise that we’ve kept sporadically throughout the years thanks to email and Facebook.

No matter how much has changed, history just can’t be erased.

Throughout the years, I’ve had my share of people I’ve called my best friend, though in so many cases we would grow apart and move on. Being the overly-sensitive type that I am, I always took this personally, and as the years passed and the relationships changed, I think I somehow labeled each faded friendship as a sense of loss, abandonment, burying that rejection and fear of being forgotten — replaced — behind layers and layers of invisible, yet impenetrable, walls.

I tried not to care so much, tried to play these friendships cool, tried to remember what seemed inevitable: don’t get too close, don’t love too much, as you’re prone to doing, because they will only leave you.

You’ll only get hurt in the end.

During these years, I’ve loved and I’ve lost. Some have left my life willingly, some have left my life permanently, but, no matter how they occurred, the pain of these losses run deep and will be something I will always struggle to understand and reconcile.

And yet, little by little, I’m starting to come to terms with it. Little by little, I’m beginning to heal. Because I’ve realized what I have now — what I think I’ve always been looking for since those first experiences years and years ago. An understanding,  a lesson learned. A knowledge that growing up means change, and with change comes new hope.

And new friendships.

The words “best friend” somehow seemed spoiled over the years — because I think I had been foolishly too willing to use it, too eager to label friends, longing to find those I could love completely and who would love me in return. At the same time, the words became sacred, and suddenly I found myself unwilling to utter the phrase for fear that history would repeat itself, as it had time and again over the course of my life.

It has taken me awhile to find them — those people who I dare now call my best, oldest, and dearest friends, those kindred spirits I find myself so grateful for (and so many more who have come to mean so much to me).  They’ve taught me that people won’t always leave you; they’ve taught me that no matter how much you love, they will love you that much more in return.

People come in and out of our lives and there’s no one to blame — least of all ourselves. Yet there are those who will always remain, no matter how you change, no matter how far apart you are, no matter how long it has been.

These are the ones to hold onto, the true friendships that last a lifetime.

Somehow, I find myself grateful for the growing pains I’ve experienced throughout the years.

They’ve taught me how to love.

And I know that I’ll always be grateful to these people who have crept into my life and woven a permanent tapestry of love on my heart.

They’ve shown me that friendship is allowing yourself to be loved in return.

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” - The Beatles

I posted this quote on Twitter tonight, the words lingering in the corners of my mind, the idea of loving and being loved in return haunting my thoughts these past couple of days…

Some people adhere to the idea of karma — that you get back what you put out into the world. Positive enforces the positive, just as negativity breeds more negativity. Once upon a time, I found this theory hard to fathom, beautiful though it sounded. Yet now, after having witnessed it for myself these past few months and years, I certainly believe in this cyclic balance.

But what about when it comes to love? Does the love that you put out into the world really come back to you?

For so many years, I questioned this. I’ve loved and I’ve lost, and through learning to open my heart and love again — unconditionally, without preconceptions, without fear– I’ve realized that there is so much truth in such simple words.

While I have been foolishly wondering when romantic love would once again make its way into my life, I’d been ignoring the many other forms that have wandered in. It’s easy to forget what love really means; it’s easier, still, to keep blindly looking for what has been there all along. Love isn’t just romance. Love is friendship, love is family, love is the animals we care for. Love is a passion, a dream, a life-changing moment.

Love is everywhere if we choose to look hard enough.

What you put out into the world really is what comes back to you, though we can never imagine — or expect — what form it will take when it does.

Two years ago, I doubt I could have imagined what my life would look like now.

Six months ago, I never could have envisioned the happiness that has been filling my soul with every sunrise, every smile.

Life has changed dramatically in just a short amount of time, and as fond of reflection as I am, I am all the more aware of just how much I’ve changed along with it.  During the winter months, I faced some of the darkest, most emotional moments I’d ever experienced. But, upon looking back, I’ve learned that light casts away the dark, good replaces the bad, and life is constantly moving forward (I’m pretty sure this is one of the laws of the Universe, right?).

Once upon a time, I mentioned that I wanted this year to be an awakening for me. I’d spent two years healing from five consecutive, permanent losses, while also coping with a loss of self-worth and questioning my place in the world. It had been an incredible journey — one, I’ve realized, is still only beginning.

A huge personal change is happening in my life right now –  a positive change – and I’ve never felt more excitement or anticipation. One of my many dreams is coming true, step by step, day by day. I’m not quite ready to divulge it to the masses quite yet, as it’s still a bit up in the air, but we’re moving forward, and when the time comes, I promise I will be excited to share it with all of you.

In the meantime, this real-life situation has been occupying my mind and leaving little room for any contemplative writing. Oh, I still have a thousand what ifs racing through there and some more character flaws to dissect and a dozen more questions to ask of the Universe…But for now, just a simple “Thanks, Universe…Looks like all those tootsie rolls are paying off” will have to do.

The blog may have been a bit more silent than usual, but I hope that you’ll hang in there with me. In the meantime, I want to hear from you! Summer plans, life changes, stories about your dog…I want to hear all about the important happenings in your life.

Today, I hope you’ll tell me your story.