Run Away With Me...
I was 17 years old and I felt like I was at the end of my rope.
I thought my heart condition would kill me, and if that didn't kill me...the actual surgery would.
I walked the crowded hallways at my school. I passed the kids who bullied me, and the kids who never noticed my existence...and then...there he was. He was tall, and his hair shown like gold. He approached me...and I ran to him. I grabbed his hands and I held them tightly as I looked up at his face...into his eyes...
"Run away with me!" I blurted out quickly. He looked confused.
"Let's run away right now! Let's get in my car and go! Come on!!...Please...let's get out of here..."
"Lindsey...I can't...I'm sorry...but I can't..."
My eyes became teary, my throat tightened.
And I ran from him...from that school...and to my car...
And away I drove. I cried heavily during that drive...and I kept his picture in the passenger seat... ...a substitute.
I walked the streets of Nashville...and it wasn't right...but not because I had run away...but because he wasn't walking those streets alongside me.
And I went back...for him. For nothing else...but him.
That heart wasn't enough...that heart that beat for him...that heart that beat a little too fast...that heart that had to be burnt in the operating room...that heart that loved him.
...and the reflection of that 17 year old girl I use to be...is still waiting for someone to take her hand, and to drive away with her...if only for a few days...
...to be free...to play carelessly...to explore...to see things...to do the unknown...to experience something new...to be surprised...to forget the invisible strings attached to us.
...just once...just for a moment...
...a nameless girl, dancing in her paradise...