Write a
story or post with an open ending, and let your readers invent the conclusion.
There
once was a young girl who moved to an island over 6,500 miles away from all she had
ever known to take a chance on love. She
was scared, but she took the leap anyway.
Once there, she discovered that love was a lot harder than it felt like
it would be at first, and she had a lot of time on her hands to think about it
or NOT think about it. So, she explored
her new tiny, coral atoll from behind the windy, fence lined salt water pool
that overlooked the crashing waves of the Pacific to every crushed coral
pathway along the shores of its full 3 mile length and ½ width. She found her favorite spots to write, to
dream, to pray, and to consider her life.
The more she hunted for beach glass and broken shell treasures along its
coastline and rode her 3 speed bike around and around its coconut palm tree
lined perimeter, the more she fell in love again, but this time with the
beauties of a tropical paradise she now called home, not a fallible, human
being much like herself.
As
the years passed, she continued to try and figure out how to make love work
with someone she didn’t quite understand; she was lucky enough to stumble upon two
jobs that she would become very passionate about and would have never chosen
for herself, and she would birth two adorable baby boys, who would also fall in
love with the island as much as their mother had during her initial years
there.
As
seasons changed year after year, so did our young girl. She became a woman, a
woman much different from the girl she started out to be. All of a sudden, she realized that she felt
very trapped, and the island she loved became a prison of sorts. During these
tortured years, she dreamed of living back in her home state, another island,
or really anywhere other than where she was. She spent long hours imagining
what it would be like to be a mother, a grown individual, and a valued employee
someplace else. She had never really
lived as an adult with a spouse, children, a full time job, a house of her own,
etc…before she left her life to come to the island. She dreamed about the possibilities of life
outside paradise, and she feared it immensely at the same time. She took her children on multiple mini
vacations to see her family and experienced immeasurable sadness and anxiety each
time she had to return to what had once seemed such a wonderful place to
live.
Then,
it all came to a head. Divorce, splitting up time with her babies between their
dad and herself, a new job, a new, much smaller home for singles only (no
children allowed in these quarters), and relief. Time to herself to heal, to get to know who
she had lost in those blurry, dismal years, time to really appreciate her
children and give them her all because she was no longer wasting her energy on
something that was long lost and unrecoverable.
Time to rediscover her island home through the eyes of new friends, new
love, and new hobbies.
She
never thought she would remain in this place for almost 2 decades. She never
thought she’d survive the divorce there, much less be found by and start a new
life with the man she was meant to be with all along. Never the less, it was never meant to be
forever, this island life. It was only for a few seasons, a few more than
anyone ever expected it to be, but the day came when it was time to move in a
different direction. So, she and her family moved back to the states and began
having new adventures there. Every now
and again, she would think back very fondly on her island life, friends, and
work there, and she would wonder what it would be like to go back and visit
someday. She evened considered that
maybe, if the opportunity presented itself, her family would go back to live
for a little while longer, but that never happened. That’s okay though because
she went on all kinds of other journeys with jobs in Germany, Japan, and all
over the world, falling in love with each place traveled for it’s own unique
qualities.
Then,
one day, after her children were grown and she had retired, she was invited to
come back to visit the island by an old friend, and at first, she was hesitant.
She thought that after all these years, she wasn’t sure she’d want to see how
it is now because she wanted to continue to treasure those old memories of how
it was then, and seeing it now might ruin that, but she took another chance.
This time, for the love of her friends who were still there.
As
she started the long journey on the island hopper jet stopping every few hours
to let passengers on and off at various stops, she had plenty of time to think,
to reminisce….which made her both happy and sad. So much of her life had been
shaped by this place, its people and her experiences there, and she was unsure
of how would she respond to it now. In the middle of her reverie, the wheels
touched the ground of the tarmac, and she closed her eyes and took one last deep
set of breaths before exiting the plane. As she stepped out of the door and
into the outside world (there’s no jet way here), she felt a “warm, wet
washcloth” of humid air brush across her face with the trade winds, just as she had felt her first day on island years
ago, and she realized…
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