This is the story of two women, as the title implies. The consequences of paths chosen. The final form of experiences that shape us.
A Life Lost
A woman once lived who born many sorrows. Scars marred the flesh of a life lived in pain. Love had left her beaten and broken, with children to support and an empty wallet and future. Her body ached under the strain of stress. Each step forward met her with hills and traps and impossible challenge. She had no help. No support. No one but her own dwindling ability to see her life in light and hope.
The mundanity of her existence brought on herself an existential crisis of disconnect. The rinse and repeat cycle of never-ending demands of hearth and home wore her down, breaking what little was left of her spirit.
Haunted by demons of the past, hounded by demons not yet met, the nevermore and evermore left her little peace.
She was a soul without rest.
A Life Lived
A woman once lived who born many sorrows. But also many joys. The pain of past horrors had alchemized in her soul, revealing a transformation of consciousness and form. Love had pushed through the tar that might have trapped her in pity and poor choices. Each step forward greeted her with unexpected triumphs and unimagined turns. Hope and happiness filled her life, with the laughter of her children as a guide to each new magic.
Through growing strength and independence she found a will to create and relate.
The calming routine of her family focus left her free to explore the interior landscape of her own imagination. She created worlds and wonders and thrilled in the joy of awakening to pleasures of beauty and the fire of life.
Deepened by the scars of her past, she reveled in the present and welcomed what was to come with wonder and awe.
She was a soul without limits.
The Choice
Choose a life. Choose a path. We think we are in what we have no choice to change. That circumstances beyond our power have conspired to move us from one point to the next.
Not so. We are both. We are all. My story is told with pain and with hope. I am the life lived, or the life lost. I am that which I choose to perceive. Both women are one. Both women are me. Only I can choose how to tell my story. Only I can choose how I interpret my world.
I think sometimes our choices are negated by fate. But, our fate can also be governed by our choices.
Either way, its the challenges, both good and bad that makes us into what we have become and how we accept the fate that lies ahead.
Anon;-)
A powerful tale. Honest. Full of soul.
Truly, our perceptions dictate our reality. All one has to do is see the good, and they will reach a happy ending.
Anon; I don't know that our choices are ever negated by fate. I think more often our conscious choices are negated by underlying programming and subconscious choices and desires that are not in alignment with what we think we want. Either way, you are right, these challenges shape us 🙂
Dmytry: thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, we all want that happy ending. It's so easy sometimes to become "hounded by demons not yet come" so concerned about all the problems of the future that we forget to enjoy the beauty and love in the moment.
I am learning, slowly, to do this. To stay in the moment and be grateful for the love and joy that exists right now. I'm also lucky to have special people in my life who fill my world with love and remind me to enjoy it.
This one gave me chills Kimberly – two dogs fight in your soul, a good one and a bad one, and the one you feed the most wins. Really cool how you told the same story with a different attitude, and it was a different story.
Thanks Tom. I had this vision for this story when I realized how I could describe my life in two ways and it would sound like two different women. And how that ability to see our lives is what shapes it. 😉