Cutting Ties

Seventeen.

It is right that I stand at this precipice in solitude just as so many others so closely steeped inside of me have done , do even now. To know among One Hundred Thousand and more tribe, family, friends; the emptiness of feeling alone. How better for me to understand the loneliness, the anguish that rests in the hearts of some of those around me?

It is not so simple a matter the cutting of ties, that last filament of connection that holds me bound, this excruciatingly painful moment that renders me able to stand on my two feet.

My family ...

The visions of them and their smiles, the essence of their kisses, the warmth of their embrace, I turned them loose ... each and every anchor. How I wanted to cling to it all as if I were still a suckling babe and I know I could not. My thoughts of them, my pride in all that they are, in all that they do ... breathed in a whisper that I hoped they would hear.

My beloved Ayguili ...

How much more difficult it is to let him go. For that reason, one small reminder I could not bear to part with; unable ... incapable of leaving it behind. I reached up to curl the small bronze disc within my fingers then I stepped out into the unknown ... on my own.