The afterthought of my soul

It was time to go home. For many, settling down is a sentence of confinement, a punishment that makes them stay in one place.  For me… it was closing the circle of a long and longed search.

When I left, more than ten years ago, a part of me went looking for myself.  I wanted to see how far I could get.  As the journey began, I felt like I was drafting each scene I was living.  Sometimes with long, thick traces… and now and then with lines so thin my pen hardly touched the white paper I was staring at.

Back in Venezuela, there was a Petrovsky painting right in front of my desk.  In it, there was a man, sitting with his arms resting in his knees, his head down and his hands embraced together.  The image was not that of sad soul… he just looked tired.  A couple of years ago I had a tattoo made with a similar feeling.  It’s an angel, almost dormant, and in the same exact position of the man.  My newest tattoo is a big blue flower.  It’s a mature soul; she has opened herself to life, cuddled it (with laughter and tears, all included). She is alive, she’s blossomed. She has scars that she’s proud of. That is I today.

My tattoos talk about these years away from home. They talk about who I am and who I have become.

There is one thing I know now, after a couple of months back here: coming home was not the end, just the beginning of a new chapter on my book.

Today I don’t run so much.  I hardly ever say I had a hectic day (and that, I am so very proud of…!). I enjoy the small miracles of life: going out with a friend, sitting down at a nice restaurant… Ordering a delicious plate of pasta, a nice glass of red wine and sharing some crazy idea of the way the universe should work.  Laugh; share a couple of tears (wine induced, probably) and promise to meet soon even if we don’t.

Time is an unbeatable friend if you know how to cherish the traces it leaves on the heart.   After so many years, memories are the afterthought of my soul.