Heros

Saturday afternoon, my friend and I held each other’s eyes and hands as she sang “Hero” for me again.

It was especially meaningful this time because so much had changed since the first time she sang it for me.

The first time, her dad and I had gone to meet a friend of theirs in Dallas and the four of us had sat in the kitchen, drinking wine and eating cheese and crackers and talking and laughing with the easy companionship of people that just got each other so well.

It was a beautiful night and Kayla begin to sing after I remarked that I couldn’t understand the lyrics to the songs that we were listening to.

And sing she did… With this strong, beautiful voice that bought tears to my eyes.

It was intimate and enriching. It was an act of trust and a gift of courage and it felt so good to share that moment, that night, that song.

This time it was just us, sitting in the chairs upstairs at my massage studio. We had just plugged in my new Bluetooth speaker and connected Spotify and I handed the tablet to her with an invitation in my eyes.

She accepted. The first song she sang, America Honey, held some sweet lyrics

“Tryin’ to be everything

Can make you lose your mind

I just wanna go back in time”.

Sometimes, I do. I want to go back in time, to my long lost friend and tell him how much I treasured his friendship.I want to go back and speak words that I held back, to remind him that he should never give up who he is for anyone else.

I can’t go back. Neither can anyone else.

However we can go forward and we can find the hero that lies within us.

“There’s a hero if you look inside your heart
You don’t have to be afraid of what you are. There’s an answer, if you reach into your soul”

That’s what I have found. I’ve found my own superhero powers, once I took a good hard look at my own heart and realized I really did have everything I was searching for.

This is what I hope my friend finds. I hope he finds his way back to music and art, to the things that made him who he was.

I see my beautiful friend changing courses and challenging herself to become more of what she wants to be.

When she said, “I’m so proud of myself,” it was with conviction that if she spoke the words outloud, they became real.

Just like the song she sang, loud and clear, for me on Saturday afternoon and on that night, long ago.

“Lord knows, dreams are hard to follow, but don’t let anyone tear them away….. Hold on… “

So I hold on to my dreams… I hold on … and I find the hero that lies inside of me and in the people that share my life and sing the words of the songs I need to hear.

Jeanna’ Mead 4 24 a.m. 2.6.20 http://www.jeannasoul.com