* * *

It is a grey and misty day at 2 pm in the afternoon. I am walking back home, taking a short cut across the mall parking lot. It’s misty and drizzling, the mizzle. I heard that word ‘mizzle’ for the first time in Seattle where I spent the peak of my last happy period. It was almost 10 years ago. Today, I feel the way I did during those days in Seattle.

The weather here today is setting up the classic Seattle atmosphere. I don’t know if it is just that the chill in the air and the mizzle on my face prime me back to the good condition I was in back in the northwest, but I am feeling confidently happy today. The sky is covered in thick grey, but there is no trace of clouds in my soul. Everyone I see passing by are shivering in cold, wearing a dark expression on their faces. But upon my face, there is a big smile, a silent smile that runs so deep. I think I understand what Mona Lisa was smiling about. The snow that covered the ground early this morning has all melted, but still, it feels like perfect winter in the middle of March, here in the middle of Maryland. I love it here. I am so happy here.

I am walking by Best Buy now, and inside, there is a small voice talking. She says, ‘Mom, I feel so happy. I am so happy that I am alive. I don’t even remember why I had so wanted to die during those years. Mom, thank you for giving me birth. Thank you for my life. I know I wasn’t the best daughter to you. But you have always been the best mom to me.’

I had told mom more than once that I wished she hadn’t had me. My words must have cut through my mom’s heart and ripped it apart. I know they did.

One thing that is certain is that life moves on. In any direction, life is always moving for better or worse. In my life, many things have hit dead-ends. A marriage no longer legally valid. My desire to have a child. My passion to become a nun. Friendships that fell away like dead leaves. My car is gone, and my first real full-time job had ended so fast. One thing that never left me was, my depression. But it’s about to leave, too. I’d like to think that it has hit a dead-end like all else did.

Another winter is saying good, another spring is quickly knocking on the door. Another season, another hope, another year, and another peak of happiness.

When a new day knocks on your door, open. Just open. And say, welcome to the new life.

When sadness, anger, grief, loneliness, and depression say goodbye to you, let go. Let them fall away like dead leaves. The past is gone and is long dead. But you– you just keep moving forward. You, dear soul, keep on living.

As for me, I keep walking on. For now, I walk until I get home, where my sister says, welcome home. I keep on walking till my final homecoming where Jesus will greet me saying, ‘Welcome home.’

So keep on driving. Keep on living. Till we arrive home.

Let’s go home.

* * *