caged birds will fly

Some people see life as a game,

others see it as purgatory,

fewer see it as a great adventure,

sometimes just out of reach.

I see life as a puzzle.

One big piece being love.

I consider love a theatrical play.

We set the stage

we rehearse our parts.

and my greatest fear in life,

the one thing that makes me most anxious

in the short 23 years I've been here

is that when my part comes

I will walk out to an empty stage

and be completely humiliated in

front of

e v e r y o n e.

A relationship being the public stage of my life

the one place where I can't control what the other actor

does or doesn't do.

Where I don't know what will and won't work out.

On this platform I've trusted so few.

Meticulously choosing cast members

and setting up cues.

At first I hold tight to only expecting the worst.

Then some time passes and I feel

that maybe this act is for real

and maybe this other actor is just as scared as I am.

If he has stuck around long enough,

I'll start to unwind and let the roles unfold and develop

as life flows in waves.

I begin to hope and bloom into a

real cast member, I start investing

my heart and soul.

To just scrape the surface,

after 4 1/2 years I ran out to take my cue

and found myself standing alone on the stage.

The thing I've feared the most for so long

happened.

I survived and quite frankly

I was wrong all along.

I was afraid of looking like an embarrassingly silly and naive girl.

Maybe I do look that way to some but so far no one has let me know

and what's so embarrassing about caring deeply for someone?

Honestly nothing.

Loving someone well even if it doesn't turn out as planned

still makes you a beautiful person inside and out.

There's very little loss in loving someone the best you possibly can.

So the next play I star in will be a little less anxious

and a lot more free.