The world is laced with pink. It is warm, and cold and distant from me. Over my mother's favorite hill the glow settles, rests before it comes into its full majesty. The little hairs on my neck are standing tall, and the tears in my eyes (do not fall) for they are frozen.

Stress is so strange. It stops me from doing what I need to do and enjoying what I love. It is a sickness, and like the pinkness, it laces with everything until it is unremovable, because it has become a part itself with what it has caressed. (I need to watch for wandering hands). It is a drug. Once I grow accostumed to its presence, I rely on it to push me forward more and more until I forget my heart and do not know my mind. It is a crack in the old windshield of a hopeful car. It begins as a tiny vetical bowl, a small flaw, and one that is easily overlooked. I neglect it, and it grows and spreads. Under the warmth of a clear blue day and the ice of a clear blue day, it warps and spreads, seeking more and more, never satisfied.

That isn't so bad, is it? To never be satisfied, to always be longing for something outside of myself, something beyond me, greater than me (greater than me?) There are different kinds, and I am praying for the wisdom to discern between the two, three, four.....more?

My love has changed. I have changed. I used to resent it, but now I embrace it. My smooth skinned love is feathered with wrinkled vines, it is a little older and weathered. Proof of the lessons I've listened and the paths I've ambled. It is better this way, somehow. I cannot say that my youth was disgenuine, only that it is now deeper. The paths of the etches are clearer. It is beautiful and I am thankful.

Beauty, Truth, Love. I will seek you always.