Once upon a time there were lightning bugs that lit up the night sky.
Adventures in the woods.
Creeks to explore.
Lakes to jump into.
Mud pies to bake.
Trees to climb.
It was delicious.
Ridiculously and wonderfully delicious.
You were full of magic and wonder.
Full of light and de-light.
Full of energy.
In fact it overflowed.
There simply was no containing it.
It spilled out of every fiber of your being.
Life was full of treasure. And you were full of life.
But then…
- a parent yelled at you;
- a sister stole from you;
- a friend kicked you;
- a teacher shamed you;
- a bully shoved you.
Little by little you stopped going down to the creek.
You stopped playing in the grand ballroom with the secret compartments with their hidden treasures waiting discovery.
You stopped running into the kitchen where there always seemed to be an endless parade of delicious concoctions just for you.
The daylight that shone through your mystical castle started to scare you—it looked like monsters on the wall; unspeakable things that terrorized you in the middle of the night and more and more often at noon too.
You closed the shutters in the great rooms; you barred them.
You pulled the drapes.
You boarded up the windows.
Soon you were living in the tiniest of corners in this immense land of wonder.
For a time you felt safe.
It seemed safer than out in that wide open world where people could hurt you and laugh at you and trip you just for fun.
But then, the light started to fade out of your eyes.
The wonder started to blanch out of your heart.
The curiosity that lead every morning with a trumpeted parade quieted and eventually stilled.
You didn’t notice it at first. In fact you didn’t notice for many many years.
Because in the land where you lived this was just what people did. Slowly they faded. They faded right out of their lives.
But one day you noticed an old coin in the corner of your little room.
It pulled on your heart.
It tugged at some memory far, far away.
A treasure.
A found wonder.
Magic.
It was a feeling.
- A feeling of running in woods
- bare feet on grass
- smell of lilacs and arms full of autumn leaves
- smell of snow
- taste of wonder.
A whisper from a little girl deep within who never gave up.
Who never forgot.
What it’s like to LIVE.
What it’s like to be YOU.
“Live” she whispers.
And then there’s an energy in your heart, like a giant smile.
It feels like dawn.
You pull the tiniest corner of the curtains back.
You pull a board off the window.
A beam of light floods your little room.
You pull another board off, and another, and another.
And soon you’re sitting in a rainbow of light and the tears are falling down your face.
You don’t care.
