Here wasn't on the map

This wasn't where I was going to be.  Not this table and chair in this art class-covered kitchen in this humble debt clouded house.  Not this lonely town in this passing through state.  Not this thoroughly used body in these well worn shoes.

This isn't where I ever dreamed I would be.

I remember like I always have.

I was headed to rain.  I was on a single lane road to pounding quiet and soaking emptiness.

From the days when other girls were dreaming of kids and houses on hills, I knew that wasn't my story.

I knew it like the broken sound of my voice.

And I made every turn I needed to get nowhere.  I shook myself out of every moment of maybe.

I was purposely lost.

And still.  I find myself here.

Where there should be dusty corners, there are soccer cleats.

In every darkness, there's a giggling dance.

Where there is supposed to be silence, there are eyelashes brushing my shoulder.

It still rains, but oh my the light show I am treated to if I just look up.

The storm rages in my chest and behind my eyes are waves held back by trembling hands, but this house is covered in the dreams of bright smiles.

This chair is not where I am supposed to be, that is certain.  I am made of too many wrongs to end up in a space so imperfectly right.

And yet.  I can be found, on any given day, staring at this art class covered kitchen table wondering how I got so lucky as to be witnessing the start of the three most gifted journeys the world has ever seen.

And yet.  I am found surrounded by the only three things I ever got absolutely right.

And yet.  Here is where I am.