Into the Night

Whatever form it takes, we all view something as special.  A special kind of man, a special kind of love, a special kind of chocolate… *grins* You get the idea.  But what makes those things “special”?  What internal compass guides us to the things we cherish most (or seek so hard for)?

I don’t claim to know… But I do know that, looking back on my life, and the very special things I’ve lost and found along the way, I begin to see a pattern to my own “special” guage.  Maybe it’s in knowing what we DON’T like, that we come to appreciate what makes us happy.

 Me?  I have a long history with self-hate. That’s made it very hard to find anything that truly makes me happy… And, because of that, I tend to push away or ignore the things that DO make me happy, because I’m afraid I’ll lose them (been there, done that).  Something not a lot of people know — I’ve tried to hurt myself countless times, in a variety of ways.  To look at me, you’d never know, but I live with the ghost of anorexia every day of my life.  I may not bear the scars of knife wounds, but that’s only because Fate intervened before I had the chance.  To this day, I battle those urges, and other self-destructive ones.  But I’ve learned something from it all, too.  Something capable of giving me the strength to go on.

You see, I’ve lost at love (tragically), and I’ve been tortured in my search to reclaim it (physically, mentally, emotionally).  But I’ve come to a bit of a revelation. I’ve realised that I was damned lucky.  I actually got to know what love — true, enduring love — really is.  And I finally understand that there are thousands of people in this world who have never, and may never, experience that.  And I feel blessed, knowing that.

So, what makes up “special” to me is quite simple… It’s that, regardless of what I look like, and what I feel inside, or even what I’ve done to myself or what’s been done by others, there’s still love in this world, and when it comes into my life, it doesn’t care about all of that other stuff.  And maybe, just maybe, someday I’ll actually feel worthy of it.

 Esther