Nighttime

"Hey sexy," my husband murmured as he cuddled behind me in bed. "You're hair looks fabulous." He slowly kissed from my elbow to my shoulder and nibbled my neck. "I love it dark."

I snuggled against his chest, tangled my feet around his legs, and kissed him. He pulled me against him.

"Babe," I wanted his answer. "Why didn't we spend that summer in Europe?"

He pulled back and looked at me. I knew the question had been in his mind longer than in mine. "What makes you ask that?"

"I don't know, I was just thinking about all our dreams we had in college, but after graduation we never did any of them. Remember? We had our passports, backpacks and we were leaving it all to wander right after graduation. But then, we didn't go."

Staring at the ceiling, he shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know babe. We needed the money and we both were offered decent jobs."

I jerked up onto one elbow. "For what? What did we need the money for? We didn't have any debt, the lease was almost up and we could have easily canceled the cell phone. What was so expensive?"

"I don't know." His sigh answered my question. "I'm really tired though." He kissed me and rolled onto his side.

It'd been my fault. I was so expensive. I hadn't really wanted to live out of a backpack and not shower for weeks. I had wanted to see the sights with money in my pocket to truly "enjoy" Europe. I had pressed for us to take the jobs and postpone the trip another year.

As life goes, "one more year" is never just one year.

wedding

I'd never wanted a wedding either. I turned the purple ring around my finger, the diamond lay on the ground. I should have let the ring determine the style of my wedding, life, and marriage. Popular opinion dissuaded me and I created the wedding of their dreams.

It had been beautiful. At everyone's request, we postponed the wedding over a year. It will be better, we concluded after listening to every opinion and not our hearts, to wait. We'll be financially stable, in college, our parents will have had time to accept the marriage; apparently true love waits.

Except the entire wedding was a performance. Instead of a declaration of devotion and love, we had danced the game in a gown and tux, our strings guided by the audience and the minister. We lit the candles, read the poems, cut the cake, played the classic romantic songs, all for the approval of smiles on faces we would never see again. We had seen our families and my maid of honor since that day. I could barely even remember who else showed up. There pictures were nowhere on display, their gifts long broken, returned, or donated.

I kept the amethyst on my left hand, slipping the diamond onto my right.

Mrs

"Thank you, Mrs.-----." I took my receipt from the smiling face. "See you in six weeks."

"Thank you."

Mrs. ---- I loved the sound of my name, of his name. I was still crazy in love with him and his kiss still make me weak in the knees. We had done the relationship thing out of order too: long friendship, complicated dating, and long-distance engagement, but the years had been difficult and beautiful. He truly was my soul mate.

I drove home and went up to my room. In the back of my dresser I had a small box with all the letters and cards from my husband while we were dating and engaged. I had treasured every word of love from him. I even had the homemade envelope with dried flower petals in it.

I moved the notes aside and pulled up a ring. It was tarnished and cheap looking now, but I had once worn it with pride. It was my first engagement ring. We hadn't had any money then, and I'd never wanted a diamond anyway, so I wore an amethyst ring made my a local artist in my city.

I slipped it onto my left hand. The large diamond I wore now looked gaudy and flashy next to the simple purple stone. He had given me the diamond before our wedding. I never knew why. I suppose it was because that was the way everyone did things; nothing symbolizes devotion, affection and commitment like a diamond. I had shown it off proudly like all engaged women and girls, elated by the impressed ooohs and ahhhhs from friends and family.

I held the amethyst to the light, savoring its deep glow.

I never really liked the diamond.

Haircut

I watched the face in the mirror as my stylist Sara snipped the edges of my newly dyed hair. The light glimmered off Sara's nose piercing as she chatted about her life, the weather, and whatever else. I couldn't concentrate on her words today; I focused on the piercing. She dressed conservative compared to some in the salon, but today the nose ring stood out. I had wanted one once. I had my tattoos on my wrist, inside ankle, and side. And I'd pierced my belly button. But each "rebellion" were small and easily hidden. The nose ring had been too obvious.

What had stopped me? Was that where I'd started sacrificing who I wanted to be for who I was "supposed" to be? I wasn't sure. How does one sort through forty-three years of possibilities for what went wrong?

I couldn't change my childhood. Whatever darkness haunted me then, I had still held to my dreams. The change must have come once I was on my own.

Perhaps the problem was college? I had done that all out of order. I'd transferred four times, and dropped out twice with a two-year break before slowly finishing online. No, I concluded, it wasn't that. I had graduated with an accredited degree from a school I was proud to be a part of and had finished without debt. The breaks had helped me learn who I was, which is the idealistic point of college anyway--to turn teenagers into functional adults.

I went through a long list: friends, jobs, grades, influences, books, idols, dreams; anything that could have distracted me from the path of destiny.

"Ok Mrs ----, you'll all set. What do you think?" Sara's smiling face jerked me from my reflection. I took the hand mirror, relived to escape my own interrogations.

the beginning....

I had no answer for her. I looked at her critical, questioning face, and searched through the files of my mind for the correct answer. As I searched, I knew I wouldn't find the answer in my organized, logical mind. I had to find this in my disorganized, free heart whom I had long ago silenced. I wasn't sure I knew where or how to find anything in my heart anymore. I kept searching my brain; logic and reason. They always provided the best answer, right?

I had once asked my mother the same question. My wanderlust heart had once wondered how she had abandoned her passionate dreams for a mediocre life of security. How had she traded life for mere existence? She too had had no answer. Had she also ignored and silenced her heart?

My daughter tapped her foot and rolled her eyes. My silence confirmed her accusation: that I was a sell-out to my own soul; that I could never understand her and her dreams; that she was right in ignoring everything I'd told her. But I did understand! In some vague memory (was this my heart?) I remembered wanting life as she described it. I remembered hating the suburbia house, cars and clothes that now defined me. I remembered wondering how to live without becoming an outcast of society. I remembered not caring if I did become an outcast, at least then I would be free.

Free. Freedom. There were two words I hadn't dwelt on lately. Of course I used the often at political events or discussions. But was I free? Had I really lived the life I'd always dreamed of? No. I had to admit to myself, I hadn't. I had done nothing I'd dreamed of in school; I had done and become everything I despised.

Somewhere during my musings, my daughter huffed out of my presence. I wondered if I could find this answer while at the salon...I didn't really want to revisit why I hadn't become what I had always wanted or why I didn't know how I got to where I was.