Walking with the One Who Waited

 Step by step,

I walk toward the part of me

I thought I had to leave behind.

Not because she was wrong—

but because the world didn’t know how to hold her.

But I do.

I feel her now,

in the hush of the hills,

in the wildness of the land I’ve claimed as my own,

in the curve of the horizon at Sky View Ridge.

She’s not gone.

She’s waiting.

The girl who loved deeply,

felt everything,

believed in beauty—

even when no one believed in her.

The woman who bent

so many times

to keep the peace,

to carry the weight,

to be good,

to be strong.

She’s here.

I whisper into the morning light:

“I didn’t forget you, not really.

I’ve been walking toward you my whole life.

I just needed the courage to remember.”

Each step brings me closer.

Closer to the love

I always looked for in others—

but which lived inside me

all along.

I ask her now:

“What did you long for?”

“What dream did I bury to belong?”

“What part of you still aches to be seen?”

And I listen—

with all of me.

I hear her laughter in the trees.

I feel her sorrow in my knees.

I see her light in the sky above my cabins.

She is not gone.

She is not broken.

She is not too much.

She is me.

And I take her hand—gently now—

as I walk the land I’ve claimed for healing.

For beauty.

For return.

I say:

“You are the love of my life.

And I’m not abandoning you again.

Not for anyone. Not for any version of me

that shrank to survive.”

Step by step,

I walk back to myself.

To Kathi.

To home.

To love.