I remember back to the times when I would sit on this swing nearly every night, letting the fresh air pass through me. Like a consolation, it flurried upon my skin, wisped through my hair, and drifted through my heart as my hand lay caressing my emerging stomach. I cried happy tears, though those were limited. Most of the time it was hurt that flowed from my eyes, caused from the guilt I conjured up for myself. After a while, all that pain subsided and all I could feel was happiness. The lacking my heart felt was replaced with a pure, unconditional love, touching every nerve in my body. I never have imagined what that could feel like until now. Even still it frightens me to know that I would sacrifice every single thing in my life for someone else more deserving than that of which life can even bring.

Life slips past us before we can fully identify with our experiences. Before we realize it, time passes us by so rapidly that we don’t always appreciate the value of what we truly have. Sometimes I find myself taking things for granted. It’s the last thing I intend to do, but life’s moments are often overwhelming. I always reassure myself that these things do pass. Time leads everything to better, more fulfilling conditions. Live life to it’s fullest and appreciate everything that comes your way; for one day you might not have anything, and that will be your biggest regret, knowing that you let something go. I’ve walked that line. Every moment passing is a better experience waiting. It’s just which turn to take that twists that contour around until you get yourself lost in a corner you can’t seem to climb your way out of.

I was always taught that everything happens for a reason. The good was meant to be for our happiness and the bad taken as a lesson for our mistakes that we learn and grow from. Without that, there would be no point in making mistakes. There would be no reason to have errors to live by. We all do things that help us to make better sense of our existence that corresponds with the energies of nature. We all have aura’s, our chakra’s radiating light, that protect our physical bodies from harm, opening up positivism and divinity to our spiritual bodies. We have no restrain over our own lives, rather our higher self controls all that we do. That, of course, was my mother’s philosophy. More than ever now, I understood what my mother had always meant when she said that our divine energies create the path of life each of us walk.

At first it was hard for me to implement a comprehension to those words. Denial imposed on my knowledge and kept me nestled in a small bubble that I created around myself for protection from reality. I wanted to reside in the realm of my own fantasy. That soon ended once reality popped the bubble I selfishly existed in. Reality was too confusing. I didn’t want to wake up to the realization that my fairytale subsided through stubbornness. I had to look beyond that illusive reflection and see what was right in front of me. I had so much time to grow and implement my childhood. But a shattered image forced me to grow up much faster than I needed to. I learned too soon what it was like to make important decisions for someone other than myself. Abruptly I had someone else that required my utmost care and attention, more than I felt I could possibly give.

At the prime of my adolescence I had to make a painstaking choice, one of the most important conclusions I‘d ever need to settle. This was my opportunity to prove my maturity. It was my testing ground, and I failed. I disappointed myself. I thought that sparing Justin’s feelings were more important than my own gratification. I never would have guessed what adversity came along with that decision. I didn’t want to stand up to the roaring lion face to face, so I made my escape. I ran away from everything that meant so much to me. I abandoned my present days, turning it into a thing of the past. I thought I could hide from reality until I got myself together. Since this wasn’t a nightmare I could just wake up from, I needed a temporary outlet from the truth.

My father took me in to that secure deposition. I left my mother, the one person I looked up to for everything, the one I turned to for every answer. This time, the only answers lay right within myself. At that time and age, I desired my mother more than I ever could have. If I ever needed her support, it was then that was most crucial. But I put my dignity ahead of me. I left to stay with my father, hoping that a short break would help me to figure out what to do. Justin was my main concern. By leaving him without notice didn’t prove that, I know. But I felt like I was protecting both of us that way.

Suddenly the days turned into weeks, the weeks turning into months, and I realized that I had made a dreadful decision. I ran away from my problems when I should have faced up to them. I secluded myself from everything I had ever known back home. I pushed it all away. Eventually, I had forced myself to forget about Justin, for if I didn’t, I would make myself crazy, harming myself or possibly my unborn child. The longer the months grew on, the more my desire for Justin grew, just as my child growing inside me.

I felt like I was slipping, falling away from sanity. My mind twisted in torment as I regretted the dire mistake I had made. As a condolence, I put on a bravado, trying to convince myself that I could survive through this, when inside I didn’t think that I really could. I felt like a little child. I was a child. I felt alone and afraid, lost in desolation, with no one to protect me. I pretended that I had all the answers when I knew I didn’t. It was like a disease I intended to ramify, complicating enough. I would have to subside in the decisions I made either way. So I escaped the unduly glorifications and relinquished my penitence. Though no matter what different altercations I brewed among myself, I felt deep regret inside, agonizing over everything I had done wrong. I felt appalling, insignificant. I started to repress my feelings from everyone, as rigor depression overrode my happiness.

Every day I grew angrier and angrier at myself for what I had done. Even though I thought it was the very best for us, I was hurting for lying to Justin. I thought it might have been better that way, but at the same time I knew that he deserved the truth. It was the very least I could do. I was just too regretful to turn the past around and I continued lying to myself. I felt contempt for everything that had happened. But for the life I carried inside me, I had to change. That gave me the strength to turn my outlook around and become grateful for what I did have in my life. Despite what regrets I have about the past, I remind myself that I have the best endowment in the world that no backing of time would ever change.

As time passed on I became a stronger person, yet at the same time I had something fading internally. My willpower had diminished and I didn’t have anything left to strive for, or so I felt. Once my daughter, Reece, was born, I realized how much I actually had to look forward to in life. She brought out all the hope I felt I had lost. The first time I had touched her tiny, delicate hand, or heard her first cry to the world, I knew I had gained the most precious gift I could ever receive. She brought the significance to my life. She was my pride, my existence, my entire reason for living. She has a heart of innocence, a special and sacred perfection so angelic. I wanted to go home, back to my mother, but denial and procrastination kept me away longer. I soon realized that upon coming home I would have to face up to my errors. I wasn’t going back unless I was returning to tell Justin the truth. I wasn’t ready for that. The longer time passed on, the more I felt that it would be too late. For Justin, it wasn’t fair. He was an innocent bystander to my betrayal.

I tried to cover up truths with denial to mask over the guilt I felt for myself. My own humiliation made me selfish enough to deprave my daughter what she needed most in her life. I recognized all I did that was wrong, but I felt that it was too late to turn back around to face my faults. Sometimes I just wanted to crumble down into the earth and waste away. I had to stay strong for Reece. She’s my foundation for support. I've already destroyed what emotional foundation I had. I only had my daughter, the connection, and the memory. I wanted so badly for Reece to have the same relationship with her father as I did with my own. It‘s been hard to establish a consistent correlation with my parents through the circumstances of being frayed between them.

It was their separation when I was twelve that left me feeling broken and betrayed, even though there was nothing I could do. I was being torn in half, with one part of me ripped away that I felt I could do nothing to recover. That was the first turning point in my life. And that’s when my life with Justin began. An instant attachment mutually inclined our fondness. We shared that bond of devastation. His trauma was still apparent when the issue was appointed. The sad, lonely look in his blue eyes showed the chagrin in his unspoken glance. He didn’t need a word for me to know that he was still hurting from his own past. That’s the way it was with us a lot of the time though. Sometimes words just weren’t necessary. Just a shared glance between us spoke so many silent words only exchanged through understood thoughts.

We had a special relationship, Justin and I. He gave me what I felt no other person possibly could. He befriended me and helped me out during that difficult time. We were each other’s open arms, shoulders to cry on. He believed in me and got me to believe in myself when I was so fragile. He restored all my faith within myself that I felt I had lost. He kept me smiling every time I was hurting. He always had a way of turning my frown into a smile, for he was like the sun that cleared up the clouds on a rainy day. We became inseparable, and that eventually created a more striving dependency for one another.

There was only one hindrance that generated between Justin and I. A layer of animosity spawned a web of jealousy over an alleged identity of friendship. It was Britney that made things so much harder than they needed to be. Her desire for acceptance and devotion fractured into bitter little pieces when resentment sweltered over her feelings. Justin and Britney were close friends, growing up together most of their childhood. She was the tomboy, just one of the group. She fit in with all the rest of them for the fact that she was just like them. Even though they shared their first kiss together, Britney was never a resonance to Justin in any other way apart from friendship. I think it was just one of those things that happen between children experimenting with growing up, whether they had feelings for each other or not.

Being the other girl to segregate their companionship made an enemy of me. There was always a false correlation between Britney and I. I tried, for Justin’s sake, to be her friend. It started out that way, but cynical vengeance broke her mold. I was a threat to her. She despised me for ever coming into Justin‘s life, tearing him away from her. She vowed for Justin’s solitary affection. I wouldn’t compete with her. I never tried to, but the rivalry was always there. I saw the demise in Britney’s eyes when I was around. She never let it show in front of Justin, nothing that would make him think any differently of her. But I always knew it was there. Britney was a different person when she was around Justin. She played the sweet girl he adored, the one that would bend her back to do anything for him. Then she turned the flipside to become a spiteful hypocrite, saying and doing things that she would never imagine acting out with Justin around.

We were children then. Times change, people change. I expected to go back and find Justin the same as I had left him three years ago. That was one desire that I never thought would be so far from reality. It’s unpredictable how much time changes a person. It’s the unknown regiment of time that makes you wish you could return to the past, without much thought of how time changes the future. Once it’s already too late, you only want to go back from where you came. You have to expect the unexpected. With that in mind, nothing could have equipped me for what was ahead in the future.

I don’t think Justin quite knew how much I appreciated him. We made a mistake. I made the mistake. I did nothing but hurt him. I never gave him a chance. For that I regret every single ingrain. Nothing is perfect and definitely nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes that we wish we could turn around and pray never happened. This was one thing that couldn’t be changed. The only thing to change was the future. Even I didn’t know what that would bring.

As for my daughter’s future, I can only do what I feel is necessary for her development. Although she is not yet old enough to understand, she knows that she has a daddy out there. I’ve made sure that she knows everything she needs to about her father. I’ve shared pictures and stories with her of our past together. I even have pictures of Justin in her room so she would always have her daddy watching over her as she slept. She knows one day she’s going to see him. Even though Justin has never known Reece, I just hope he won’t act indifferently towards her when the time comes that they do unite. Reece wants to know her father. She needs him. How can I deny that of her?

Clasping on to that dream was like a butterfly in the palm of her hand; a beautiful butterfly she can admire and cherish. Reece is absolutely fascinated by Justin. I know how important it is for her to see him. For everyone’s sake, I had to fulfill that yearning. There is a burning desire inside me to give my daughter what she needs the most. It was my obligation to make that commitment. Like a misplaced puzzle, the pieces of my life were scattered. Only I was the one to rectify the remains and replace the missing pieces. I knew what I had to do. The proceeding days ahead would be a trademark. I didn’t know what my fate was abounding ahead of me. My life would begin to change yet again. I held onto Fate‘s hand, treading over the stepping stones of my life that would lead me into exaltations beyond my control.