Panera Bread on a Wednesday Afternoon

I have been absent online however not absent in my writing. I have many things I am intending on posting in the near future. I thought I would post this now, since it has been so long since I have added an entry. I am upset with myself for not dating this. I believe it was written during early November of this year. I wrote it while having lunch by myself at Panera Bread. 


Too tired to return to my  car. Nostalgic. Missing simple times. Being ten years old, sitting in my grandmother's kitchen. When hand written letters were delivered with a stamp and by real people. Before I knew of such things as war. Believing that playing outside with my cousins, Josh and Seth, justified all reasoning for why I existed. Watching the sun stretch her beautiful arms over the fields behind my house while softly kissing my nose and leaving golden freckles as proof, her fingerprint, that she had once been there. That I too, was once young and happy, and most of all, healthy. A time when worries flew past me and cares swam over my head. Remembering the smell of fresh hay at the barn. The way I tropped through the mud behind my father across the ground, my three steps to keep up with his one. The excitement over a new pencil box and crayons for school. These are the things my dreams are made of as I sit here in a Panera Bread on a Wednesday afternoon. These words are peaceful and real. Almost as if being spoken by a voice over at the end of a movie, a fairy tale even, where I ride off into the sunset blessed to know that I too, was once young and happy and most of all, healthy.