This morning, I went over to my ex-husband's house to retrieve Molly. Molly is a 10-year-old Dalmatian who is fully committed to acting like a spring chicken. But unfortunately, her body began to object to the story she was telling about herself last year and we both agreed it would be best for her to permanently live with him. It was a heart-wrenchingly difficult transition... although now, looking back... I realize that it was one of many that got lost in the fray of others that superseded it.

Funny how life works that way. You stand before a moment certain it will split your heart in two, only to discover later, it barely left a ripple against a flood.

Still, Molly and I have our walks. It was a beautiful morning, early enough where the humidity and the mosquitoes were still at bay. Just enough summer to feel held, but not suffocated.

As we approached the trail, I noticed two leaves on the ground.

A heart.

Immediately, without thinking, I said, "Thank you. I needed that. And I'll take anything else you've got."

Surprised by my own reflex, I immediately thought, "Old habits die hard."

Once upon a time, hearts followed me everywhere. After my uncle died, they appeared in leaves, lichen, mushrooms, stones, flowers, tree bark. The world seemed incapable of speaking any other language. And I listened.

God, how I listened.

Not just to hearts, but to numbers, synchronicities, chance encounters, timing. The entire universe felt alive with instruction.

Some of what I believed those things meant came true. Some didn't.

I've paid for both.

And what saddens me now is realizing that every sign, left uninterpreted, was empty. There was no voice descending from the sky to tell me where to go, what to do, who to be. The voice(s) was never separate. 

No matter how much safety or comfort I found in believing that it was.

The voice was mine. Woven from belief, conditioning, hope, fear, memory, desire, and a thousand invisible currents moving within consciousness. 

I wasn't receiving direction.

I was creating it.

And that realization has been repeatedly breaking my heart lately.

People hear that and call it empowerment.

Whereas I hear it and feel the echo of an empty room. Something I know all too well.

One of my earliest memories is confusion. Not an event. A condition.

I did not understand this world.

Its motives.
Its rules.
Its limitations.

The way people moved through it as if they had been handed a map I never received much less comprehended.

So I retreated into imagination. Into daydreams. Into conversations with imaginary friends. Into far off lands. Into Spirit. Ancestors, God, the unseen.

Anywhere I could go to find what life itself was not giving me.

What I needed to survive.

Needed.