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The Spring sun lights the world beyond the window, and she sees it afresh. Where there were drab greys there is now the promise of vibrancy that will be fulfilled as the day itself progresses. There are no empty words here. There is a pending reality to the sun’s commitment to the Spring and Mother Nature is eagerly underwriting this union.

She looks upon this scene and there is fear in her. There is no discerning the cause of that fear, only the source. She has been afraid all her life but became adept at drowning out the sounds of her fear with a false mantra of boldness. Words of conviction uttered over and over until they became a spell that she believed had come true. The magic though was dark, and it failed whenever the light shone too brightly.

She is a contradiction. She yearns to feel that sun on her face as the cool breeze gently caresses her and thrills her body to shiver in response. There is a need within her and that need is for connection. To feel the simplest of sensations and step a little closer to the love that was once promised to her but never hung around long enough to stick.

There is an alien quality to her existence. She has given this otherness cursory consideration from time to time. Posited the theory that she is the alien. Quickly discrediting this as she wanders amongst an indifferent populus and sees the mirror of herself in each and every one of them. Still, she is separate. Cast adrift in a sea of potential lovers.

The fantasy of an alien world once delighted her. She a prince surrounded by paupers. Her true nature hidden from such as these, as they were incapable of fathoming how special she really was. Set apart by both birth and destiny. Sullied by those she allowed to worship at her altar. The initial thrill of that union dissipating in her disdainful disappointment.

In their eyes, she saw their awe. Placing her on a throne. Supplicating and fawning. None her equal. None worthy of her. This world rendered alien in its worthlessness. And yet she tried. Oh, how she tried. Again and again, she allowed one of them close. Starved of affection and adoration, she went again. But the effect of each courtship wore off and all she felt in the end was anger at their ineptitude. Hatred at their inability to live up to her expectations.

Expectations of love that would wash away her failed past. Just one suitor to take her hand and look deeply into her eyes as he kissed it. The gentle brush of his lips and the intensity of his gaze filling her with butterflies of meaning and delivering the romance that she so richly deserved.

This was the dream to which she was entitled. The special moment that aligned with how special she was. She’d waited a lifetime for her moment in the spotlight, and it had seemed to arrive again and again, but never was there applause. And as she peered out into the theatre of her life, she could see no audience.

The sun beyond her humble palace is the spotlight and she sees now that it shines brightly for everyone. It has no favourites. The trick is to go out into the light and make it her own. And it is a trick. She was tricked from the very start. Perfection born into an imperfect world. With her first breath, she was a bundle of dichotomies. Helpless without connection. The need for others a constant throughout her life. But also, the overwhelming desire to be seen and understood. To be authentic in this world and accepted for who she was. Her uniqueness a gift that was corrupted into a curse by parents who themselves hadn’t secured love sufficiently for them to thrive.

Insecurity was the legacy the king and queen had bequeathed to their little princess, and having administered the dose from the outset of her life she had been unable to question the validity of it, let alone make a compensatory choice.

Her parents had enacted a play of pain that masqueraded as love and in the midst of their deepening conflict, she had sacrificed her authenticity, learning that being herself hurt. The overriding lesson of her childhood; love hurt.

In the end, the queen was exiled and found love with a kind and gentle common man. The king soon followed suit. Both of them learning the real lesson. The lesson that their pain had been yelling at them even as they blamed the other. The truth was that the war they had waged upon one another had worn them out. They were tired. Too tired to fight anymore. And in that state of exhaustion, they dropped their guard and for the first time in their lives they let someone in. Better still, they dared to be themselves. Sleepwalking into a connection that delivered them from a broken cycle they had been destined to repeat and hand down to all their descendants.

Never did either of them think to mention this to the little princess. The change in them was too obvious for them to feel the need to point it out to her. They assumed she would see for herself and feel the love they had now accepted into their lives and themselves.

She didn’t see it. For her heart was trapped in a dungeon and she awaited its rescue. Her rescuer wore her father’s colours and attained the impossible standards she had created in order for everything in her life to be put right. Only magic would fix the hurt.

And in a way, she was right. Love was a magic beyond measure. Love didn’t hurt. Never did it hurt. Love was answer, and it was question. Love made sense of life, changing it from a tortured existence into a life worth living. A life full of worth and meaning.

Waiting, always waiting. Even now, she stood waiting at the window. Expecting the world to come to her. The sun to cross the illusory glass border and fill her with the meaning of its light.

Waiting for her father to come for her and bring her out of this state of self-imposed, churlish exile. This one quest that would restore harmony to the kingdom. Only he could complete the quest and in that joyous resolution, she would at last be whole. And in being whole she would love, and she would trust the love bestowed upon her. A love that no longer hurt. The love she had been deprived of from birth.

Her abandonment isolated her, even with those she claimed to love. Time had frozen her and made of her an island. Those who landed on her shores were given the warmest of welcomes and made to feel as though they belonged. The promise of her was deeply alluring. A drug that induced a happy dream state. When the time came to dismiss the dreaming fool, he collapsed into a nightmare that crushed his very soul, and however hard he tried to win her back, she would avoid his advances and turn his efforts back in on himself. Using his love for her as a weapon. Inflicting familiar injuries upon the current focus of her vengeance. Breaking others as she herself had been broken. Teaching them the lesson. Showing them what they really shared. Not love. Never love. Only pain and a sweet subterfuge of lies.

Safe in the palace of her isolation. Protected from emotion by the moat of her indifference. She repeated the lies of her childhood. This was her kingdom, and she exerted control upon it with a deceptive force of will. This was how it was done. Show the world your best face. Smile sweetly for the cameras and never let slip that things weren’t fine. Everybody hurt. There was a background radiation that wore everyone away until they gave up and trudged around in the same old circles. Happiness was the first flush of a false Spring. The buds never truly bloomed. Summer never came. The sun could shine in the Winter. Any warmth was short-lived and did little to stave off the cruel winds that brought pain and death.

She missed something beyond the merry-go-round her life had become. Sensed a loss just outside the stone-cold walls she had built. Had begun to examine the world around her and her own experience of it.

There was more, and she had had it within her reach. Been in the company of those who loved in a way that felt good. Better than good. That feeling was a far better insulation against the worst life could do to a person. That feeling went beyond the ice and stone she had used as protection.

Then there were those who had sold her on her own brand of safety and entrapped her in pain that far surpassed her own trauma of abandonment. Isolating her to an extreme so that she felt she was losing herself in a confusion of darkness. She had courted monsters in favour of lovers. Dark dragons wearing the skins of men. The fires she’d seen in their eyes weren’t the fires of passion she so wanted to warm herself in, they were the cold fires of hatred and oblivion. The monstrous lurked in the places she had convinced herself were safe and they charmed her with lies of salvation.

And she had avoided the safety of true love into the bargain. A bargain she had secretly made with herself to the exclusion of all others, even those who could save her. She had put to the sword those she said she loved. A traitor’s blow to the heart as she smiled and watched the light in their eyes go out with the comprehension of how cheaply she had sold them.

Every time she had betrayed a lover, she had betrayed herself far more. Her rejection was all-consuming. Another nail in the coffin that encased her heart. Another suite of lies that bought her passage further away from where she truly belonged. A ghost ship drifting into the darkness. Losing herself had seemed the easier and gentler option. Now the loneliness was closing in on her. Killing her softly, but surely.

Outside there was another day. There had been thousands like it, but none were ever the same. Snowdrops falling through infinity to fulfil a unique destiny. Despite herself she smiled and before she could think herself into another dull corner that thwarted her ability to live, she walked to the door and tentatively opened it. Pausing at the threshold to ensure her step forward was true and deliberate.

And there it was. The warmth of the sun. And yet it came from within her first. Something opening inside her. A bud reaching out to the sun and welcoming it in a way she had once experienced but chosen to forget.

Acceptance.

She thought of it as acceptance of the sun and its warming rays. Then, as she stood there enjoying the sensation of being, she understood. This was acceptance of herself. The sun was the sun, it had no need of her acceptance. She had gotten everything the wrong way around. Led a topsy turvy life. The seed of her had attempted to grow down and away from the connection it required. Hidden in the darkness of her own fears. Now, in the light that made all life possible, she felt the other, deeper light that really made life possible. The lifeblood of the universe flowing through all living things and connecting them.

Reaching her arms out in an all-encompassing embrace, she felt that flow and she gave herself over to it freely. As she did, she realised that she had no choice in this. Never had. This was the river of life, and the current swept her towards the oceans of love she had deprived herself of.

He was here. Her father. They were all here. She felt their love now and she accepted it. At last, she allowed herself to be loved. Tears ran down her face as she began to laugh with the joy of it.

Always here.

She heard the words, but wasn’t sure whether she’d spoken them aloud. That didn’t matter. What mattered was this revelatory moment. Love had always been here. She’d thought it lost. Lost in translation. And in her not receiving the message on terms she had set. Had deemed it not to exist. The frailty of her defences amazed her. She’d clothed herself in the most transparent of lies. Closed her eyes to the infinite and pretended that it was no longer there. Hers was a childish game. Conspicuous play intended to garner attention. It didn’t matter what attention she received, all she had wanted was for one of the adults in her life to make it better. Make her better. She deserved better.

And she did.

She deserved better.

From herself.

It was always within her gift to free herself of her misery. Hers was a self-created trap. She could see that now and she knew that she had always seen it. Glanced upon it again and again, choosing to kick the dirt with her toe, turn her mouth down in an insolent frown and await an intervention that never came. Hurting herself and blaming love for her own actions.

Of all the things to blame.

And she’d blamed him. After all they’d been through and everything they’d shared. When life got hard, she’d reverted to type and blamed him for everything. All of it. She reserved for him the worst of it, when he’d been the best of it. The best of men. The best for her. He’d brought her better days. That was the gift of him. He’d been constant in his love and believed in her, even when she gave up on herself and held no belief in anything of meaning. He’d never lost sight of her, even as she plunged herself into the dark depths once again.

He'd loved her despite everything. His was an enduring love that had frightened her. And so, she’d rejected him. Abandoned him. Climbed back on the wretched merry-go-round and inflicted her learned pain upon him.

She was right to be frightened. She allowed herself this much. His love had encouraged her to be more, and she had dared venture out into the light and grow. But what was she without his love? What was she without the love that flowed through her as she stood in the Spring sunshine and allowed herself to be?

She shook her head at her foolishness. Even as she stood in the midst of love, she hadn’t allowed herself to recognise the truth of it. The truth of him and his love. The truth of her. His love was their love, and love was far more than them both. He didn’t control love. This was a tide and a flow independent of him. He couldn’t control love, and he couldn’t control her.

That was the weasel voice of her fear. To lose control that she had never had, and to be controlled in a way that was impossible. She saw the lie and she sighed a breath of sadness upon it, watching it disintegrate. Fall into nothingness.

His love was unconditional, but in order to love him she had to live that love. These weren’t his expectations. This was an obligation of sorts, but not the onerous obligation she had made of it. She was obliged to live. She owed this world a life. But she had a choice. She could always choose how to live this life.

Now she made that choice.

She took out her phone. Typed a short message. Typed another. Her finger faltered over the send button. The connection of those few words sent through the ether fell short of what was needed. But still she wanted to act. To do something in this instant. She’d wasted too much time. Too much of her life had been lived in the shadow of her own fear.

Ringing him, she resolved to leave a message. Words of love spoken. Expressing her truth at long last. Accepting her flaws and her vulnerability. Her very nature. Her uniqueness.

“Hello?”

Falling silent in the sound of that word. The sound of him. Knowing that he was in the world. Connected in the moment. Wanting this. Needing him. So much lost time to make up for. Hoping that she wasn’t too late. Knowing that she wasn’t too late for herself. Never too late to live the life that was owed.

The silence protracting. Hearing his breath and in his respect for her silence so much more. He knew. He knew that she needed this. And of course he did. He knew her better than anyone, and he was giving her this moment. He’d given so much and now it was her turn.

She drew in a breath that contained tears and anticipation. Composing herself so she could speak the words she had typed but not sent.

I’m sorry

I love you

Another silence as the meaning of those simple words did their work and changed everything.

Good

That was all he said. No automatic reciprocation. Instead, acceptance.

“Can I…”

She faltered as she broke the spell, and it fell to her to be the change she had always needed.

“I’ll put the kettle on.”

She looked out across the sunlit garden, smiling her happiness into the world.

“I think this calls for gin.”

She felt his smile before he replied.

“Best bring a lemon then.”

Later, she’d tell him about the cancer and the precious little time left to them. But not now. Now wasn’t the time. The cancer was merely noise. A distraction from what counted. Now there was only love and healing and living.