It exists. in The First Life

I’m sitting at work, and it’s grey.
My favorite color.
My best jeans fit too loosely now…
I didn’t even try.
I drove hours the other night while realizations crept through the slightly cracked window.
The first warm air of the season always brings clarity.
I spent nearly 8 years loving two people on complete opposite ends of the spectrum in what I need.
It makes sense for me. I’m an all or nothing kind of girl.
I couldn’t get passion with structure, and I couldn’t get responsibility with an artistic mind. The two things existed separately, in separate bodies, and it was easy to starve myself of one and crave it all the while.

What this taught me, is exactly who I am.

Somewhere in those extremes I’d lose myself.
Try to fit myself more closely to one side, to force myself into a space where I just didn’t belong.

There is a middle.

I looked up and saw exactly what had been there almost every other day.
But in a mindset of clarity and no longer searching, I realized there was something I had been missing.
Something that acted just like me.
That created like me.
Worried like me.
Second guessed like me.
And finally my pockets full of anxiety and fear were turned inside out.

I crave passion but not one that blinds.
I need structure, but not one that binds.
I seek intelligence, and not the kind you can buy.
That does exist.