time that's passed

Four years later she pulled her skate bag out of her garage. Dust coated, it emitted a musty, basement smell. Inside, a pair of worn down skates stood, the years of wear and tear could be read like pages of a book. Each knick, each broken eyelet. The cork heel rotting away, water stains creeping up the side of the boot tinting the once pure white skate a yellowish color. The laces wore down groves in the leather where they had been pulled tight day after day. Memories of that day flooded back. The day she sealed that bag for what seemed to be the last time. She hung up her dress one last time, and soon it fell to the back of her closet from lack of use. Her tights, torn and pulled sunk to the bottom of her sock drawer. Her head buzzed as memories of the reactions rushed back. “You’re giving up your dream,” “You’re making the wrong decision,” “You’re going to look back on this and regret it.” But then it seemed unreal to think she’d ever feel such a way. She disregarded those words, and soon her once skating themed room began to lose its spark. New pictures hung on the walls, her medals seemed to fade into the clutter. But wouldn’t you know it. Four years later, she was overcome with regret. Though she loved her life as it was, and had she not made that life changing decision four years ago, she would not have met the people she now called her family. But in her heart she knew that the ice is where she belonged, if for nothing else, for a means of self-expression. It was something that was hers, and she was good at it. Maybe not good enough, who knows what would’ve been, could’ve been, should’ve been. What matters now is that she can look back and say that the flame had never been put out. What she had mistaken for a burnt out fire was really embers that remained glowing. And something has been feeding those embers over the past four years, something that today has reignited them into the glorious passion that it once had been. So as she pulled out those dusty boots from the back corner of the garage, she smiled to herself and knew that nothing could ever fully diminish this flame. That deep inside of her, there would always be a passion burning. While it may come and go, diming at times and burning strong at others, she knew it would always remain lit. An eternal flame in her heart.

[alc]