If I could rewind the week and start it again, I would.
If I could change my decision in the moment and do it all over again, would I? No, I made the right choice for the circumstance and situation considering.
But the replays in my head still make me jump at anything that is to the right of me, the colours of the day still pop in my mind, yet the face that stared me down with menace and murder - I can't see. It's all a blur.
Each moment of each day is now taken with apprehension and caution. Each step taken scanning around me as I walk. Did I take the time to smell the flowers this week? No.
So I settled into looking at them from pictures I took and taking me back in time to walking a plant nursery where the sun was shining, the air was warm and welcoming and the atmosphere was happy and embracing.
In my dreams, I see flowers everywhere and I can smell them, walking freely with reckless abandon and appreciating them with not a care in the world for anything else. I feel alive and energized and in love with life.
The beach I see to either side of me as I walk on the sandy shore is soft and clean, the waves breaking quietly providing some form of soothing white noise that tumbles on itself in time with my steady, strong heartbeat. There is no racing. There is no tremor, there is only the smell of the sea and the sun on my skin. Walking at my own pace, no reason to run anywhere, just time on my side to see all the little intricacies washed up on the sand alongside the beautiful blue that stretches out to the horizon and disappears beyond.
There is a perfect place, where there is time for everything that my soul needs, there is a space for everything that my heart wants, there are friendly smiles and pleasant conversation, there are clouds that are not menacing but bring cleansing soft rain to wash the grime from the day.
And that place resides in me - in my tiny moments of isolation where I can zone out from the world at large and remember what life is meant to consist of. There is no anguish there, there is no anger there. There is only contentment and a fucking insane resilience that overpowers all the negative nudges that the world leaves at my feet as they pound the pavements and my breath heaves from the adrenaline pulsing through my veins and setting them on fire.
There is no longer a wavering in my voice, my ears are no longer ringing. My head is clear and focused. The chaos that wrapped itself around me so tightly sloughed off from my being. There are flowers all around me, my smile may be harder to find, but it still creeps in when I smell the jasmine in the air and the sweetness left on my fingers after picking strawberries.
~
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
William Ernest Henley ~ Invictus