Today I wore an elephant on my chest. Not a real elephant, but a really neat green, peach and beige elephant painted on a stretchy thin shirt.
I loved wearing that shirt today. The sleeves wrapped tight at the wrists and all day I could breathe in their beautiful soothing design - a combination of colors and hues that invoked images of flowers or butterflies or something equally free.
I had never worn the shirt before, but this morning the elephant and flowers and butterflies called out to me. They begged to be worn...to accompany me on my day.
Today was the last day of March. I bought the shirt in January, in Colorado. In January, Colorado was fun. After January, Colorado came to represent all bad things. For friends who know the story, Colorado was the end. Not the official end, perhaps, but clearly the end.
But when I was in Colorado, I had no idea it was to become a bad thing. I loved Colorado. The day I bought the elephant shirt was a wonderful day. My travel partner was off for a full-day hike. I spent the day in a bed and breakfast becoming fast friends with our host.
The host and I started that day with hot, rich coffee thickened with cream and sugar. Instead of serving me, as she had on previous mornings, she joined me. We sat together and welcomed the day. Just another day in a small town.
After coffee, we shared a walk in the cool, clear Colorado sunlight. We walked to the brand new dollar store where it took me a full forty five minutes to choose two big mugs, two big stretchy hairbands and a family size bag of salty cheese snack crackers. She stuck with office supplies - pencils and other little things.
High on the thrill of getting good deals, we then walked to Subway where I convinced her that a footlong is a much better deal than a 6-inch. We shared two different kinds of chips. We ate slowly, talking to those who came by our table and flirting with the precocious little boy in the booth across the aisle.
She was at least twenty years my senior with experiences far different from my own, but the host was just a lunch buddy that day. We were just girls in a small town sharing a day of feeling good.
Later on, back at the B&B, after we had settled all of life's major questions, I volunteered to go for the wine. After all, what's a lovely afternoon with another woman without a good bottle of cheap wine?
Five minutes later and five dollars poorer, I left the town's only drugstore with a big bottle of vino. It was a beautiful day and the town was quiet. Peace reigned supreme.
And as I crossed the main street to make my way back the two blocks to the B&B, I saw the elephant in the window. The elephant was everything good that day. And so I took him home with me.
I was ignorant that day. Oblivious of the changes ahead.
And there was a very brief time, months later, when I felt anger and embarassment about that time. I wondered how I could have been so happy when clearly there was trouble brewing. I worried that I had enjoyed myself while everyone but me knew that my world was falling apart.
But that time of worrying was quite brief. Because as much as I tried to feel bad about Colorado, I realized that my world wasn't falling apart back then. My world was just changing. Even though I wasn't trying to change my world, or even wishing to change my world, it was indeed changing. Someone else was changing it and I was along for the ride - unaware, but along for the ride, nevertheless.
I used to fear change. I used to fight passionately to maintain the status quo - never stopping to question whether I liked or enjoyed or benefitted from the status quo.
In the past, I clung to everything that was a part of me, my personality and my world, afraid to lose any piece of the evidence that my life was authentic and meaningful. I honored what I knew by making it the ultimate truth - and believing that no other truth could be better for me.
In the past, I didn't understand that peace comes from inside and that each of life's tides is temporary - ebbing and flowing in a natural rhythm.
And so it is that Colorado is just a place and January is just a month. And now it's the end of March and Colorado seems like a lifetime ago. Actually, it seems like another life. Perhaps three months from now I'll be privy to whatever is brewing today. Because today isn't just three months later. Today is also three months before...
I really want to go back to Colorado. I want to go back in the spring or summer months when it's hot. I want to run on the hilly paths of the small town I was in back in January. I want to sit outside at night and see the mountain skyline before me.
Maybe I'll get back to Colorado soon. And maybe I'll end up visiting somewhere else. Somewhere I haven't even thought about yet. And it doesn't really matter to me. Because I think I like this idea that wherever you are in your life, what you know is just a small part of what will be.