Returning

It's been so long, too long, since I've written. Returning to my blog feels like walking into a house once loved but long since abandoned. With great trepidation, I unlock the door and go inside.  My footsteps echo in the hollow emptiness as I feel my way across the room. In my heart, I know I am trespassing. I don't belong. In my long absence, I have lost the right to be here.

And yet. . .

If I stand perfectly still, memories like a faint but familiar perfume drift through the air. The music of laughter and tears, of love and anger, of thoughts and words, warble softly as though being played on an ancient victrola unseen in some dark corner of the room. 

Slowly, it all begins to come back to me. The hours spent inside these walls, sheltered from a world that sometimes seems so much more than I can take. The searching for words to make meaning of it all. The frustration when I failed and the triumph when I succeeded. It was here that I found some semblance of peace and the strength to face that uncertain world.

It occurs to me that my feeling of being a stranger here is not the result of my having been banished. It was I who simply wandered away. And this house, this beautiful, empty house, has stood waiting patiently for me to return, to fill it once again with the noise of daily living.

Feeling braver, I switch on the light and look around. It all seems so familiar. And welcoming. I am not a stranger here. I am home. This is where I belong. 

It will take a lot of effort to fill this house up again. There will be days ahead, I am sure, when I won't feel I am up to the task. Today, however, is not one of those days, so I survey what lies before me and roll up my sleeves.

Time to get to work.