Once

She was always about work, so busy, too busy. Too busy for happiness, too busy to act her age, too focused on her career and there was hardly anytime for herself. It was business as usual. Until she met him, and he met her. She was his and he was hers. For the first time ever she had her own him. It happened once. Love happened once. He took away all of her fears, he made her laugh, he replaced work with daily opportunities to be happy again. She found her voice through him. She loved being loved and for the first time she knew what that feeling was like. All of the times in the past that she had been let down, no longer mattered. She forgot everyone’s name before him. He blew them all out of the water. This is what she was looking for. She was that still river, always focused, pure and determined. And he was like the rapid that stirs a river, unpredictable, wild at heart and brave. She was not use to being so loved, so appreciated and so taken care of. There had to be something wrong, how could someone love her so much? She started pushing him away and stopped understanding his wild heart. His rapids soon mellowed down into ripples, to change his ways for the smooth and peaceful her. But it didn’t work. She loved him so much that she wanted him to be those rapids again. So she chose a different path. Her river turned into a stream that simply glided over the cobblestones at the bottom of a once raging and beautiful body of water. Could she ever be loved like that again? Could she ever love another? Her stream is still and waiting. He became a rapid again and she could not be more pleased. He still loves her and she still loves him. It happened once. Love happened once and she won’t forget that feeling for any other feeling in the world.

Breanna Armstrong (c) 2010 "Once"