Acceptance

You are walking up the street to your car, your Venti Chai in hand, thinking your thoughts. You look at a store front window, the store with all the baby things in it. You see a multitude of signs posted, festival this, art faire that. It catches your eye for a brief moment, some poster about a charity walk. You don't read it, but it strikes something inside you. You keep looking at the store front window, with the pink piggy banks and the baby socks and the small soccer balls and you get it. You get the natural progression of things. You didn't want to truly accept it, call it post-adolescent idealism or whatever you want to, even though you've known it in your heart for awhile.

You see it written, the two little rugrats, the mortgage, the soccer practices, the ballet recitals. You see it all laying out in front of you like a big canopy that you can stitch and sew together as you choose. And for the first time ever in your life, you are not scared of it, trying to deny your future. For the first time in your life, you are utterly accepting, embracing this future you knew you'd have all along. You've discarded the dreams of being picked out of a crowd by someone who truly sees your gift and allows you to tap your potential as a full-time writer (be it movies, tv, or books) so that you no longer have to toil in obscurity. So what if you'll toil in obscurity, it will be with this beautiful man and possibly two beautiful kids and it will all make sense. And you've already been picked out of the crowd by someone who sees your potential and believes in your writing full-heartedly, your husband.

You see your path really clearly for the first time, and you think, fuck psychics, fuck horoscopes, it's been laid out before me forever. And it feels right. You know this in every fibre of your body, it just took a second for your brain to come around to it. You think back to moments before, on the other side of the street, to where you and Fighting Nun were standing earlier, coffee in hand, getting ready to depart for the day, him to the train station, you to your car. And right before you say goodbye, you kiss. A sweet gentle brief kiss, nothing new in the kiss, nothing new in the way you feel after the kiss, but you embrace how you feel, how comfortable it is to be with him, how great it feels to be together. Even though you know it's a romantic cliche, somehow when you kiss, it feels like everything for that moment is totally right, and calm, and balanced, and it's such a warming feeling.

And you are brought back to the present and you wonder if that moment, if that feeling brought you to this one, this one of acceptance and hopefulness about the future. And you know that it did, as did the moment before that, when Fighting Nun told you his dream involving Xhibit and a Lion man, as did the moment before that, and the moment before that. Because every moment that preceded this one was to reassure you that the moments that proceed the one your having now will be just as good, just a fulfilling, just as worth it as they all have been. And now you've fully embraced it. And you walk a little taller, with a little more love and calm in your heart, knowing what you now know.