adventures and life lessons of a super-woman: Just a little writing workshop project

adventures and life lessons of a super-woman: Just a little writing workshop project: While I don't have a big adventure to share, YET, I felt so guilty about not participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, th...

Just a little writing workshop project

While I don't have a big adventure to share, YET, I felt so guilty about not participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, that I am instead participating in a writing workshop.

The thing with workshops, is it is meant to challenge you, to give you ideas, to force you to practice a skill, as well as learn fresh and new methods.

In this post, I'm not sharing a castle, or a winery, or any sort of neat new thing I have discovered, but rather something I was inspired to write because of a writing prompt, "What can happen in one second?"

I hope you enjoy me baring my soul, and allowing myself to be truly vulnerable.

As we approach the holidays, remember that many people are missing someone that we have loved. Some of us are missing multiple people we love and have loved. Please be a little kinder, as the holidays are statistically shown to have higher rates of suicide due to depression. Reach out and tell someone you love them today.

Enough of my blather, here is my prompt.

In a second, the lives of an entire family can change. A group of people, who have held hands, and shared tears and laughter, and years, can suddenly feel an irreparable divide.

It only takes a second, for a niece to yell in one breath “Don’t shock him again,” at a nurse who is standing, holding paddles, questioning, waiting for guidance.

In one second, a man can stop breathing. A doctor can call time of death. A mother can have a tear roll down her face for a son, now lost. A daughter can hold her, staring at a now lifeless brother. A man can grab for his wife’s hand, and he begins to mourn a lifelong friend.

In one second, a woman can acknowledge the devastation on the faces of the people gathered in a room to say their final goodbye to a man who touched all their lives.

A woman can panic, as she knows her life has now changed.

In one second of blind panic, a woman can wonder “how can I be strong for these people, when I have just lost my lifeline, my strength, my guider, my protector.

It will only take a second for her to shake her head “n0!” and back out of the door, praying no one notices that she is lost, while she tries to gather herself for what she knows is to come in the next few days.

It will only take a second, for a brother to call her, and say “Where are you,” a second for him to say “we need you,” and a second for her to straighten her back and know she is needed and must be stoic.

Later, days later, after eulogies, funerals, burials, hugs, sympathy hugs, “sorries” and goodbyes, a woman can scream, in one second, “Why me?” screaming at God, as she rips off a necklace that has for years been her grounding force, the reminder of her beliefs, the thing she fingers during unsure times, and fiddles with during softly spoken words.

In one second, her talisman can be lost. In a second, she can want to give up.

It will only take a second, for a friend to wrap their arms around her, to let her borrow strength.

Later, months later, in a second, eyes can lock across a crowded bar, as two strangers share a smile. In a second, you can say a name, so that you are no longer strangers. It only takes a second, for hands to touch, and a spark to ignite.

 In one second, lips can touch softly, then grow into passion, as two people try to find release from their separate griefs. Each hoping for that second, that this person will be their savior, and allow them to finally unburden their souls.

Later, one angry word spoken in a second, will ruin that illusion, and the two will know that in each other, they will not find the deliverance, the liberation that they seek, but that rather their meeting has been two people, seeking to find comfort in someone whose demons make similar demands to their own.

It only takes a second.

Time will pass, and in a second, a woman will hit confirm on app that details a destination.

In a second, she can scream, laughing into the wind, on an abandoned rainy beach in Miami, “I’m letting go now.”

It only takes a second for her to feel a lift of the guilt she has felt so long, and begin to understand again that there is a plan.

In a second, belief can reignite in her chest, as she turns her face up to realize the last drop of rain has ran down her face, and begins to feel the warmth of the sun, caressing her cheek, making promises of better seconds to come.

In a second, she can read a question, written as a writing prompt, during a writer’s workshop, and write the first word on a leather bound journal.

In a second, a woman can reach up to touch her neck, and remember her lost talisman. Later, in a second, she can acknowledge the cool metal against her neck, reaching up to fiddle with her charm out of nervousness of an uncertain, but bright future.

In one second, a woman can choose to be brave, and allow herself to be vulnerable, by letting people see the forks she has followed along a twisted road.

Life is a series of seconds, turning into minutes, then hours, and years.  Destinations can change, and decisions are made one second at a time, leaving no time for a pause, to rationalize the next decision, the next breath, the next word. A lifetime can change in one second.