I once walked along a path of roses.  The forgotten remnants of a wedding long since past.  And I remembered to say my own vows.  A vow to honor and cherish and love this life.  A vow to walk and breathe and live through sickness and health.  A vow to experience the world in all it’s glory until death made us part. 

I married my own joy that day… without a dress, without a witness, without a minister. 

At the end of the path, a lake was quiet in the evening sun.  No one cheered for my choices or made promises back.  But, in the mirrored surface of the water, I saw the woman that truly had the power to choose the path of my life.  She had been there all along.  The ripples of my tears could not alter this mantle of responsibility. 

I had been looking to others, to the external world, to give me permission to do what I wanted with my life, to love who I wanted to love, and to be who I wanted to be.  But whether they approved or disapproved, judged or remained impartial, no one in my life could give me a satisfactory answer.  No one but me. 

I married not only myself that day, but also my own sovereignty.  I hold the keys to an invisible castle bigger than my mind can imagine, and with each day I learn to rule my Queendom with compassion, playfulness, and a ferocious love for life.  But every Queen makes mistakes, and I am no exception.  Staring at the path below me, I thought to gather every rose petal and count my errors one by one.  But when I caressed each soft petal, I felt the fragility and beauty of each mistake. As each petal fell from my fingers, I intoned “She loves me, She loves me not.”   

As a Queen, a sovereign being, I’ve learned that mistakes are both the source of life’s greatest trauma and life’s greatest gift. Mistakes give us the opportunity to continue being in the process, the process of living, the process of learning, the process of remembering that this moment is all we’ll ever have. Because the day that we stop, we die.

I made one last vow as I walked back along that rosy path.  I vowed to always be in the process of being and let the roses fall wherever they may.

“A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won’t come true.” ~Ray Evans

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