At least for today...

... I am grateful for the distance between myself and the pasttime of a lifetime.  It has brought me back into civilization from beyond the fray, it has enlightened and taught me, it has introduced me to an array of new ideas and ways of thinking and seeing art and emotion.  It has let me explore dark and uncharted territories my psyche that before were deemed dangerous.  It has lifted me up to places of such joy and relief.  It has been the guide on fantastic journies from which I never wanted to return.  I have learned, through it, to love others with a new kind of love.  I have shared deep emotion and connection with those who were before but strangers to me.  I have expanded my horizons and become wiser and happier, more complete and whole.  I have felt the sting of being alone and at once amongst hundreds of supporters, and the whimsical dichotomy that exists between the two all at once.  I have laughed and cried, been bored and over worked, overindulged and self-involved and subjectively selfless at the same time.  I have felt utter terror and fear, and jubilation in it and it's due process.  I have been given the gift of many good friends, and also, my soul mate.  Were it a spiritual and emotional lender, I would be endebted for eternity.  I am passionately in love with it, and crave it at times like a drug.  My heart and my brain ache for it.  But once in a great while, when the waters are muddied with the soil of corruption, of ill-will and greed, of contempt and hatred, you have to let the murk stay where it is.  To let the waters run a while, until they clear and become fresh again and can be a sense of renewal for those who wade in them.  It's a bittersweet step away from the banks, even if you know it is only temporary.  You still want to taste it on your lips, even tho you know that it may promise, for now, to be acrid.  Still, the lack thereof will only help your appreciation for the next swim grow and become more relevant.  It's still a sad day when I am forced to explain 'I'm just taking a break, for now.'  But I will stand back and wait until the time is right for me to approach the wake, ready to step in again.  I only wish that those who are driven to sully something that is so cleansing and wonderful were more able to see how we might all appreciate the absence of their contribution. 

~Sarah