...for the Guarded

Maybe I'll just stay busy. Maybe I'll just exercise a lot. Maybe I'll just do everything but sit here and think about my flaw.

My flaw that has ruined relationships and refuses to allow me to grow.

My flaw that has consumed me these past few weeks.

I am guarded.

I fear proximity.

I crave relationships.

I grieve mistakes.

Sometimes I just want to leave.

To open up a bookstore in a little boat town. To go to a new school with an accent. To live a completely different life than the one I've been living. Instead, I'm stuck in this life and I don't know how to happily stay here at the moment. This isn't a children's book you can buy on a kindle, where you can escape to a world where paste covered fingers and battling imaginary dragons are your only problems. Instead, we have to face our own dragons. No knight in shining armor or dinner time to save the day. Just you, the dragon, and your toilet paper roll sword.

My dragons have been winning the battles lately.

My dragons have been breathing fire lined with doubt and laced with regret.

My toilet paper sword bends when it hits the shield guarding my dragons and unfortunately, the only guard I have is the one I've put up.

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23

I know this to be true, but I don't know why I have to follow it so literally.

I could rattle off a list of "i hopes" and "i wishes" but that won't get me anywhere but hoping and wishing to turn back time and fix what's been done. Instead I want to start rattling off lists of "i can" and "i will"

I can open up to someone I love.

I can guard my heart yet show and receive compassion from those around me.

I will live in the present and move away from dwelling in the past.

And I will fight my dragons with a terry cloth cape and an aluminum foil shield, and be very successful at that.