Painting With all The Colors

"Completely, totally, utterly, perfectly, entirely, wholly, fully, quite thoroughly, unreservedly"

That's what Google says about "absolutely".

I'd add another word to that: finally. Once and for all. And maybe a sigh behind it, too.


Behind me, my nervous dog, Gracie, paces back and forth across the cottage's hardwood floor. She paces, I believe, because she feels captive, knowing there are other things on the outside. Squirrels, birds, great places to take a squat.

She paces because she's slightly neurotic, always has been. What else might I expect of a creature with hypnotic yellow eyes?

Last year, I was experiencing a similar restlessness as I sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window with the sick feeling of being in the wrong place, with the wrong people, everything built around what others expected.

"I want a little cottage somewhere," I wrote in a journal four-plus years ago, "with a front porch, some yellow paint, mature trees, and squirrels for Gracie to chase."

I wanted to live in safety, that was all. I'd never known just how much home life affecting everything else I did, and was.  Had I understood the power of words, I'd have been placing my order long ago.

Here's where I live now:

 A front porch. Mature trees. Squirrels. Yellow. Yep.

This after years of middle-of-the-night, "please, God, get me out of this", sobbingly-tearful prayers. One day, in His perfect timing, I got a rescue.

I filled up the chalkboard-covered short bus I call "Chalkie", (a story for later), and drove down the road,streams of gratitude dripping onto my tee-shirt, to the sound of Zack Williams' "Chainbreaker".

It's a moment I'll never forget.

I'm still figuring it all out, but the freedom to be who I am, to be surrounded by those that love and support me, and have to deal with none of the other kind (and if they rear their ugly heads, they'll be swiftly dismissed), is my sort of heaven.

It's time to paint with all the colors.


*You can see how I'm doing that, by visiting PaintBox and/or Amy Larson's (H)artwork