Broken road

I thought about you yesterday. I thought about the way you pushed me from the adolescent wanderings of the quarter-life to full-blown adulthood. Standing here, two years over the threshold, I feel good. Not old, but not so naively young, either. Thanks for that. It wasn't easy, life with you. It wasn't easy and it wasn't always fun, but it didn't suck either. I look back and think that it was good; necessary, even.
I thought of you yesterday and the way things were. Good times, I thought, but times I wouldn't want to relive. They've been lived, been enjoyed, been analyzed, and I've learned and emerged. I thought of you and felt grateful that you were one of the stops on my way to this moment, because I know - I know - that if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be standing in this exact moment. You prepared me for this. You taught me to stop selling myself short, to follow my gut, to take the chance and be happy, to close my eyes and step off the edge and let life take me. You taught me to stop hating myself in those subtle ways: not giving myself credit, building walls, running away. You taught me about the beauty of these curves and this brain and this heart when I saw them through your eyes.
I thank you because you prepared me for this. This is better. It's like my first pair of heels: low and chunky and not particularly stylish, but I learned and then moved on, and now I've got these fabulous electric blue stilettos and I rock them - one foot in front of the other - gracefully. I love those electric blue stilettos, and I love the place where I am now. Really do. Love the way I've moved on to a near-perfect fit - as close to perfection as anything we'll find on earth. You, you were a good fit, but now it's so much better.
And I mean that in the nicest way possible. Because I was not so great for you, either, and I know that. We smoothed each other's rough edges, like sandpaper, preparing for what was to come. I thought of you yesterday and I thought that we'd been happy, but that I hope that today you are happier the way I'm happier. I think of you with affection and gratitude, because I wouldn't take it back. I mean, yeah, there were some sleepless nights and some wasted tears that I will attribute to you, but in the grand scheme of things, it was good.
So thanks, for the lessons, for the challenges, for the healing.
I'm glad it brought me here.


*The song that inspired the title, although my post is more about the road than the destination, the intention is the same: