A Life of Possibilities

Her eyes close and her chin tilts upwards as the kiss of the gentle sea air caresses her cheek. The touch of it is soothing, familiar, carrying the fading warmth of the day as the sun splits on the horizon.

She has not been here in many years. She has lived a hundred lives since she felt this cooling sand between her toes. Yet the sharp scent of the salt and seaweed fills her senses, bringing back memories as if they were just yesterday. Her heart contracts with the passage of time, the losses and the longing for what is no longer there, for what is no longer hers.

She watches as an arm encircles a young girl’s shoulder. The group of teenagers, immersed in the thrill of youth and newfound freedom, walk the sands. The girl is beautiful, her arms and waist slender and bare. Her low-slung jeans hanging on her protruding hip bones. Daring to expose her soft vulnerability. To show off her slimness to her friends… and to the boys. This boy. His face belies confidence, the kind of confidence that will break hearts. Her eyelids lower as she absorbs the warmth of him around her, his breath on her sun-tinged shoulder. A scent of beer on his breath. An overwhelming sense of man. Her stomach clenches with excitement, with anticipation and a feeling of… what was that… of possibilities!

Yes! She knows it now to be possibility. Of what is yet to come, of eager excitement. The carnal desire that exists within every girl's veins. The feeling of living in a body that is changing, is emerging from the bonds of childhood into the lithe, slender beauty of a young woman. Of a young woman who faces a life full of possibilities.

The young girl bares her teeth in a grin that doesn’t reach her eyes. She searches for a word with her face hidden. Any word. Her laugh is harsh and forced as the boy taunts his friends, hauling her closer to him. She is desperate for him to look at her. Desperate for him to speak to her, to hold her… but the thought terrifies her. She says nothing.

He breaks away. Her shoulders feel the chill of the sea air. He bounces off his friend before grabbing another girl. Another girl from another town. He looks at this girl. She looks at him with confidence and a raised eyebrow. She whispers in his ear. They break from the pack and walk towards the sand dunes. Talking. Looking at eachother. They look… connected! Effortless for some. Illusive for others.

The girl looks out to sea. Her stomach flutters and nerves crawl on her neck as she wipes at a tear that the breeze has dislodged from the corner of her eye. She looks at her hand, the skin is pink and taut. Thick make-up smears her fingers. Her stomach plummets. She will look ridiculous. Why did she come here? Why did she dress like this? He didn’t even look at her. She takes a deep breath and turns to her friend with a painted smile.

“I didn’t even like him that much anyways. She’s welcome to him!” She sniffs.

No one is there to look into those eyes, to see the hollowness.m that lives there.

The girl glances up and meets the gaze of the older woman sitting on the sand dunes. Her face is lined, fanning out from her eyes like gentle sun rays. She smiles.

Her eyes see that hollowness. She recognises it. She sees what the girl does not yet understand. She knows the desperate need to fit this skin, to feel part of something, to feel like she belongs. The woman remembers the awkwardness, feeling like the outsider, feeling inadequate.

At last, she has found that inner peace that brings the connection she has searched for her entire life. Connection with herself. If only she’d had that when she was a younger woman still blessed with the luxury of time.

The woman opens her eyes. The beach is empty. The summer sun has faded and the cool sands lie still and dormant, like a canvas waiting for its next paint stroke. The cooling breeze displaces a lock of hair that falls forward over her shoulder. It is flecked with grey, more wiry than her youthful tresses, but it retains its own beauty. She traces the wrinkling skin on the back of her hand. She searches for the gold ring that has never encircled her life, the child that never emerged from her womb. The possibilities that never happened and those that now never will.

The woman stands. Her legs don’t feel like they used to. She can’t sit in one position for too long without aches creeping up her veins. Her arms are no longer slender, and her waist is no longer slim and exposed. Her soft underbelly has been ripped from her not once, but many times. The heartache, the fear, the anxiety.

But that is not all! For she has lived!

She has seen wild horizons, felt a million stars touch her skin, she has tasted midnight and sung the morning chorus. Those fanning lines etched round her eyes hold the wisdom of hard won lessons and those that she still holds with joy and tenderness.

She walks back towards the now empty cemetery. The congregation has long since left. The dirt mound sleeps beneath a carpet of grass that waves in the gentle sea breeze. The door on life has closed for another. Another woman had reached the end of the magnificent journey that she called her life, gone like a distant star snuffed from the night sky. Soundless. Now wordless. A wiser woman grown too weary. A woman who had her own stories to tell, both heartbreaking and wonderful.

The woman stares at the grave. The girl she once was stalks in the back of her mind as she opens a chapter on the next. Each transition as hard as those before. Now motherless, always childless but with many more stories to be lived and told.