Standing On The Edge - Part II

We were standing on the edge, looking at the wide expanse of the future in front of us.

'Take my hand' he said.  'Take a leap of faith with me.  Jump in.  Both feet. I got you.'

I took his hand, took one precarious step in his direction, then stopped.  I stood still for a moment.  I could feel the warmth of his hand, could hear the timbre in his voice saying "I got you". 

For the longest, that's what I wanted - someone who got me. Someone who chose me in every circumstance.  Now, here I was, being offered exactly what I'd asked for. No equivocations, no compromises, no games...just a straight up commitment to choose me every day.

'Take a leap of faith. I got you.'

I took his hand, took a step in his direction and then, like Lot's wife, I looked back.  I looked back to my recent past and realized there's a ghost lurking there.  There's a ghost of 'what ifs'.  There's the lure of perfection. There's the ghost of a different choice...a choice I'm still making every day. 

I could feel his hand, see his eyes meeting mine, feel his breath on my skin, hear his voice in my ear: 'I got you'.  

The sound of that was like a siren calling a ship to crash on her rocks.  It was passionate, enticing, surreal, and exactly what most people wait to hear. 'I choose you in every circumstance.'

I walked away from the edge, turned my eyes from the vast expanse of the future, felt the moment from the inside out.  I could feel the warmth of his hand, I could feel his breath on my skin, I could hear the sound of his voice in my ear, I could see his eyes pleading with mine...and could feel my heart beating to a different rhythm, could feel the sound of another voice, the lure of perfection, the embodiment of an ideal.  

I dropped his hand.  I moved away from the sound of his voice.  I found the sound of my own voice.  I felt the beat of my heart.  I heard myself say:

"I choose me.  I choose to look at the vast expanse of the future and take a path that makes sense to no one but me.  I choose to follow the beat of my heart and see where it leads."

But the ideal is not real. It's an idea I created in my head, willed to come true and know that perfection is just something to be enjoyed momentarily. Perfection happens...that I now know.  What I also know is that when love looks you in the eye and says 'take a leap of faith with me', you leap towards love.  You follow the beat of your heart as it learns to beat in rhythm with another.  You leave behind what if's and if only's and you move towards the vast expanse of your future.

So, I listen to the sound of my heart beat, recognize the sound of my own voice saying 'just breathe and trust the path you're on. Trust a journey you may not understand.'