It's always harder to begin again. The first rush is long gone. It's just you and the long road ahead.
No different from starting to date again after the break-up of a long relationship or that first moment when you kiss her and realize you were expecting those previous lips. Or when you touch a face or a breast, and your fingers find the differences from your lost love. For a moment, you recoil because it's unexpected, but fortunately that doesn't last. If you're lucky, you'll stop comparing her to your former love by the third date.
Or maybe not.
One step at first, of course. You put yourself out there again, signal that you're ready to risk your heart again, and steel yourself up for the pain.
Then you take another step. One step at a time. Walking away from what was toward what will be.
So hard to do that. To leave your past. To forge forward into the unknown ... the unexpected ... perhaps heartache ... perhaps nothing at all. It's a wonder we ever take a step in the first place.
But we do. Eventually life will pull us or leave us behind. Either way it's a choice.
We take the first step. Heading toward our new life, that fabled place where we are loved, where we love in return ... one step at a time, walking toward Jericho.
***
Sanako and Hassan, and Clyde and I put in another half mile last night.
