{"id":1213,"date":"2012-08-08T13:24:02","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T12:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2012-10-20T13:32:29","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T12:32:29","slug":"restoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/?p=1213","title":{"rendered":"restoring"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have to be alone very often.\u00a0 I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment.\u00a0 That’s how I refuel.” ~ Audrey Hepburn<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

She\u2019d joined in. This was a significant step, a sign perhaps. She knew what to look for and this afternoon\u2019s contribution to a brief conversation with Kate was definitely a sign. When she spoke her voice sounded different than she remembered but then\u00a0it had been several months now without communication and she was out of practice. Then, quite unexpectedly, the silence had been broken.<\/p>\n

Six months ago she\u2019d embraced a self-imposed exile making solitude her new best friend. She and solitude existed together in a place of darkness and pain, filled with disturbances that played over and over in her head usually in the middle of the night when sleep couldn’t be found.<\/p>\n

On the days they could make it out of the house she and solitude would visit Golly Gosh where they knew they\u2019d be left in peace.\u00a0 Sitting in the corner they\u00a0were allowed to\u00a0exist in\u00a0their\u00a0preferred\u00a0world devoid of emotion or meaningful social interaction.\u00a0 Playing at being invisible; playing into the hands of self-pity.<\/p>\n

But without her knowledge or understanding or agreement\u00a0something greater was at work.\u00a0\u00a0Something that\u00a0knew how to heal and restore;\u00a0gentle in presence and perfect in timing.\u00a0\u00a0And over the months that pitiful darkness had slowly begun to ebb away.\u00a0 Light had come in the presence of the people around her and she felt a strong connection.\u00a0 She smiled and breathed deeply.\u00a0 Closing her\u00a0eyes\u00a0she silently thanked God for the life and spirit they displayed and for the strength and comfort\u00a0she’d received but had failed to acknoweldge out loud.\u00a0 If there was a God she was grateful.<\/p>\n

Today she didn\u2019t want to give up. Today she felt alive and\u00a0asked solitude to take a step back.\u00a0 Just for now.<\/p>\n

Today\u00a0a\u00a0new sense of purpose was emerging.<\/p>\n

She watched as Sally and the others gathered around the window, laughing; something about a man and a dog and Maggie. \u00a0And they waved.<\/p>\n

She lifted the cup to her mouth and drank soon realising her tea was cold and she’d been sitting thinking for a while.\u00a0 Looking\u00a0down at\u00a0the\u00a0beautiful purple notebook gifted to her in another time and place she knew the blank pages longed to be filled.\u00a0 That was its purpose.<\/p>\n

Beth\u00a0wanted to write the story.\u00a0 She couldn’t let go of that precious, precious, thought.\u00a0\u00a0Holding on tightly, she held it captive, for fear that it would escape and slip away\u00a0and, in doing so, take away the hope it inspired along with it.\u00a0 This time she wouldn’t let it happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have to be alone very often.\u00a0 I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment.\u00a0 That’s how I refuel.” ~ Audrey Hepburn She\u2019d joined in. This was a significant step, a sign perhaps. She knew what to look for and this afternoon\u2019s contribution to a brief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[32,31,11],"tags":[115,95,159,156,30,56,117,118,119,116,120],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2zQgS-jz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1255,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions\/1255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gollygoshcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}