Flight Patterns

by Karen White

Nobody to hold up a mirror to make me see whom I had become, or to see the person I’d been who had never really believed she could be anything more than ordinary. My mother had once told me that she didn’t know that particular sorrow, the sorrow of being ordinary.

It wasn’t that we wore badges on our sleeves announcing our emotionally crippled status. It was more a wariness shown in the eyes that only the fellow wounded could recognize.

Georgia was impervious to hurts of all kinds—both those she inflicted on others and those intended for her. She’d always known how to shed arrows the way ducks shed water, walking away unscathed and unconcerned with the carnage left behind.

shattering into so many pieces that could never be put back together.

“That the heart wants what the heart wants.”

used to say that we’re all drawn to water because that’s where we come from, in our mother’s womb. The soft, rocking movement brings us back to when we were unconditionally loved and

protected. I’m not sure I agree with her.”

attraction to water was because it offers an unending source of renewal. It’s there with each wave—with each tide. Always wiping the shore clean of all imperfections in time for the next tide.”

“Because no one can hurt us as much as those we love

The grief had become like an untreatable infection, festering beneath

Visiting Lilyanna’s grave always teased

at the dressing, threatening to lift it and expose the u...

“Regardless of how far you go, home will always be the place you started. There’s really no way to change that, no matter how much we wish we could.”

“It’s not really about forgiveness, is it? It’s about power. When you let your hurt from the past control you, you are tied to it forever. You will never change your life until you learn to let go of the things that once hurt you.”

For wasting so much time looking back and wishing the past had a fork in the road where I could choose an alternate ending.”

people rarely do what they should when every thought and action is filtered through their hearts.

mutual confession. To illuminate life’s potholes that couldn’t hide the beauty and strength of the person beneath. Not to compare whose life had been harder, but to confirm that it could be survived.

There are no limits to starting over. That’s why the sun rises every day. Unless you’re running in circles, and then the outcome never changes.’”

If you want things to change, you have to stop waiting for someone else to make the first move.

regrets were like porch swings: They kept you busy but didn’t get you anywhere.

Our cracks were proof of our survival, evident only to those we allowed close enough to see where

love and forgiveness are like the moon and the tides, each dependent on the other. Each lost without the other.