Slow Motion

How Could I Ever Tell This Brilliant, Lovely Tiny Human That Anything Is Impossible

The nights have turned cool and the trees are on fire with Autumn's splendor. Halloween is only two days away. It is, hands down, my favorite holiday, even if it doesn't come with a "day off" (although if it were up to me, it totally would). And I've probably asked myself a thousand times over the years why it's my favorite. Is it the frivolity of dressing up as someone or something else and stepping out of the everyday me for a moment? Or perhaps it's the chocolate, which of course I can have at any time now that I'm grown, gainfully employed, and can purchase it with reckless abandon on any day. And every single time I eat a snack sized piece of candy, little me is somewhere in my bones doing a quiet victory dance. I love the contrasts of a little bit spooky mixed with a little bit of magic. It makes me believe that even the most fantastical of things are possible. And while I have yet to pinpoint precisely what it is about Halloween I find so special, I have noticed that as it is the beginning of the end of the year, the entire feel in the air is one of slow motion.

Nights are longer, my thoughts become more intense in their depth (which in and of itself is a frightening occurrence), and I feel as if I'm navigating my life through a constant time lapse. By the time December rolls around, I adamantly refuse to participate in anything resembling a Christmas "rush". I want to savor every moment of evening fires, quiet stars, and a year I'll never see again. I'm already pondering questions like "What did I do with my days in 2017?" and "Where will my next footsteps take me in the moments to come?" Almost three weeks ago I was in a pretty serious car accident, which makes those questions all the more essential to my mind. It's funny, when the doctor told me I had a concussion, her advice for recovery was to "turn off my brain". I mean, has she met me? Because I'm pretty sure that is completely impossible! While I have attempted to follow her orders, what I've found is that the only thing I could shut "off" were the mundane workings of a typical Amy day. What was left are those intensely deep musings.

There are shadows beneath my eyes mostly created by the current hauntings of loss, my father, our puppy, my car...and others, unnamed, whose absence is still a dull, yet constant, ache. Tick, tock...tick, tock Amy Marie. 2017 is melting away with or without you. And it's okay to walk slow, wrap something warm around you when you get cold, just don't stop. It's okay to look back, but make it brief, as you are no longer going that way. And it's okay to slip from October to November, to December and right on into the unknown of the next year, but take a bit of the magic with you for the journey. Because deny it if you will, the fact is anything is possible.