if i'm being honest....

okay, so the aforementioned nervousness has subsided, and the aforementioned plans have been rescheduled for next weekend. it was going to be too much of a logistical nightmare, after all, so it's better to have time to enjoy the time rather than rushing; at least this is my theory....

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i just watched a documentary about some teen girls in baltimore who came up through the system and were put back into society. one of them (whose junkie mother was in and out of jail) went back onto the streets, basically, while the other spent a year in a group home and then was placed back with her family just months before her mother died (at the age of 34, i might add). this girl's whole world had been rocked consistently for four years (she had originally been put away after stabbing a girl to death), and when she finally catches a break, everything is shattered all over again.

and yet, in the final moments of the program, we see her a year later. she's now 4th in her class and is preparing for her prom, the whole neighborhood coming out to see her off. and she posed for picture after picture, this huge smile plastered across her face.

and all i could think of was....this girl has been through hell on earth, and yet she somehow manages to find delight in something so simple. she has no money, no mother, and enough of the world's reasons to be jaded, and yet her face is shining like a little girl's and she is not ashamed.

and somewhere inside, where i have yet to recognize my own freedom to be who i am, the ache is throbbing....