Walls

Living outside the wall was harder than she expected. Inside the wall, she had been lonely but outside the wall she was alone. She was shocked to discover that earthquakes were happening outside the wall, too, and she began to wonder about her decisions.  

Outside the wall, she had no practice at making friends, and so her loneliness compounded.

She walked through the crack in the wall to be free, and she often felt her freedom came at too high a cost.

Over years, she learned how to move forward. Over years, she learned how to collect friends. Over years, she learned how to ride through the earthquakes around her so they didn’t rattle her bones.

When she was a child in the lonely house, all she dreamed of was being happy. She wanted to write an ever after story, with no more walls and no more hiding. Instead, she found that sometimes she has to go back into the valley. Sometimes, the loneliness is crushing. Sometimes all the bone rattling from before hurts again. Sometimes she still hides and sometimes she still dreams.

But mostly, she just tries her very best to live outside the walls, ever after.