Twinge

I was standing at the mirror, looking at my reflection after my shower. The glass was still a little fogged and my hair was dripping on my shirt. I noticed my face was dry and beginning to flake. It's that time of season here in Colorado. A twinge of gratitude came over me as I remembered my teenage years and how my skin was always oily and prone to acne. I'll take the dry skin any day. I was looking very closely today. The 'laugh lines' around my eyes, the freckles on my nose and the three holes I have in my left ear. All I could see was this shell of a person that people think I am. That I think I am. I don't recognize myself. This is not who I am. This is not who I want to be. Yet, the vision I have of myself is uncomfortable. It's not what I know. The energy is gone from me. The care-freeness is gone from me. The joy is gone from me. The strength is gone from me. Where am I? The emptiness envelopes me much of the time and filling that emptiness if fruitless. (unless you count the banana I ate earlier. ha) As I'm looking at myself, I'm wondering how I break free from this prison I've built for myself. Times were so much harder as a young girl, yet I had so much more strength then. Could I have allowed myself to be broken? Where is my strength? I long to sail away to find it as if it is floating around in the vast ocean of life. Perhaps it is in me and I just don't have the key to unlock it yet...