“Gifted-Public-Figure has died at aged-age.”

Seldom do I swim in a sea of envy. I lie.

Envy waits patiently for me at my door each night and stands sentry till morning. It accompanies me – walking ahead on my route each day, morphing into fantastic shapes of alternate states of being. It pops out at each corner to say “I’m an option, if you’d heed it”. It draws in with play-fighting and truth-meandering; faux soul-searching.

Envy fears all things

Gnaws all things

Seethes through things

Corrupts good things – envy never mends.

Gifted-Public-Figure has died and I, I was inspired. And envious.

Not of their death, or even of their life. But of all those who are finding or have found their purpose, and are thriving in pursuit of the thing, even at 39. And then, I was envious of their mind.

But then that left no space to grow!

That left no space to ponder my own issues and grab my own weights.

It left no roads on which to be bare-back, worn down, weary, and soaking.

It left no reason for me to find a valley to fill with a sea of my pain and dive into, so I could swim to the other side and sing. All it did was encourage me to drown.

All I heard were songs at the corner with tempos of mourning, of cries to drop down, dig a hole and bury my soul. Then use all my powerful potential to water the seeds of waste and prune their poisonous vines where I had laid them.

All it showed me was waste when all I desire is grace.

Today hit’s different. Because I saw a light, just the one.

Then others quickly rose to affirm it. So I knew it was the light at the end of a tunnel and not a train hurtling towards me on the tracks.

Gifted-Public-Figure has died at aged-age. And I took my envy of perceived accomplishment and I put it on the road. I shaped and carved and filigreed till I was sure it would hold. Then I set it beside my other fears and worries, anxieties, doubts, and excuses.

I set it with no spaces between the cracks as my next stepping stone.