Every single time she was terrified of what was to come, she could not comprehend how she would ever survive, but she did. Circumstances, situations and dilemmas surrounded her, sticking out their tentacles and wanting to strangle her. But she fought back – oh, it was the fight of her life.
Grief and loss beat down on her, the effects stinking to her. She cried a river. The river overflowed, failing to contain the volume of her tears. Only time made it better.
Eventually, the flow subsided to a trickle. But anger and rage became a fiery furnace within her. Its flames determined to dissolve her very soul. Something short of a miraculous quench delivered her.
The past came knocking, and each time, she was gullible enough to respond. That response brought only more reminders of dreams unfulfilled. It sought to draw her back into the abyss that she so desperately wanted to escape. There were faces everywhere, even faces of people whom she had once placed her hope in. Those faces frightened her now.
At some point, a dangerous and insatiable lust devoured her. She became a haven for every man that passed by. Uncontrolled and outrageous was this appetite that she ate and ate and ate until her insides were filled with a horrible stench, a stench that took years to scrub out.
Doubt, with all its maybes, ifs and perhapses grabbed at her, but she shut her ears and remembered all the things she believed in.
She arrived at a place that scared her – between a rock and a very hard place. Swimming in the river of regrets, the if onlys billowed around her, wanting to drown her to her death – the death of hope. But a branch of hope swept by. She held on to it till she was buoyant enough to swim safely on her own.
All these emotions permeated through her as she metamorphosized into who she is today. Invincible, gallant, strong as a rock and wise beyond her age. It was absolutely necessary that she went through this process because now she stands out as a beautiful rose – sweet, but thorny.