Surreal

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We dare to make plans, yet we do not expect God to laugh. That is exactly the jab that Emma feels sitting alone, on yet another dreary Sunday night. Stuck in a labyrinth, surrounded by dull, grass hedges, full of thorns and absolutely opaque.....the way out seems catastrophic. She remembers her giddy professions; how eager she was to escape routine and unwind but instead she receives a slap from reality that causes her to sulk deeper into the squelchy fabric of the chair. 

This time she discovers what "in an instant" means. This time, she is forced to swallow that our plans are not friends with us, that they can leave us at any time, because they serve a more powerful master, whose name is unpredictability. This time, she is shoved into a battle of hope versus reality and she chokes in tears at the realization that reality will always beat the persistence out of hope, each and every time.

Emma is desperate to flee the enclosure of her mind but each time she lunges forward, she trips and falls hard. Life teaches its lessons with a whip and it demands Emma to surrender, to succumb to its weight, to relinquish any thought of a sunset horizon. Emma screams as each blow is dealt like they are from the hands of Goliath himself. 

Thus, as the days go by quicker than she blinks, Emma reaches the gate of acceptance; that though life can be beautiful, it is only so on its terms. It does not answer to her plans and it gives no damn that she is good or does good. All life knows is that it needs to go on and this time around, Emma learns that she has no choice in the matter. She can choose to crumble, go to war with life, place complaints in the suggestion box or she can learn to bend, adjust, twist, shake life's hand and take from it, the very best she can, whenever she can. Life is the master Emma, never you.


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