I Don’t Owe You My Why

 

I Don’t Owe You My Why

I’m at peace with the way I move through this world.
I come and go when I’m ready.
I speak when I feel like talking.
I go when my feet say follow.
I say “no” without dressing it up.

It’s not rudeness.
Though if you call me before sunrise
or after dark,
You might get a different impression.
Somewhere along the way,
I stopped hauling the weight
of needing to explain myself.

I've spent a lifetime softening my edges,
Explaining my choices,
Making sure nobody mistook my silence
for anything other than courtesy.

Not anymore.

If I take the long road home
because I wanted to,
That’s enough. No explanation.
If I turn down an invitation
With a simple “Not this time,”
That’s enough, too.
I don’t owe you a breakdown
of my health, my schedule,
or my spirit.

If I decide to try something new,
or let something old fall away,
I don’t need a committee to meet
to approve the shift.

Some folks will get that.
Some won’t.
And at this age,
I’m finally fine with both.

Because aging with
all its creaks, cracks,
and sound effects,
comes with a gift of clarity.

I know what fills me.
I know what drains me.
I trust the pace I walk at,
even when the path bends
out of sight.

So no offense
if I don’t call a press conference
Every time I make a choice you don't like.
I’m not hiding.
I’m just comfortable now being me,
without the footnotes and references.

No, Not Yet

 

No, Not Yet

There was a voice on that sterile hospital morning,

silent as breath on glass.

soft as wind slipping through leaves,

That answered the questions I never said out loud.

I remember asking if my time was up,

If the surgeon’s knife were the last thing I felt,

and the answer rose through the stillness,

"Go back to sleep, not yet."

As the anesthesia pulled me under,

I drifted back to the day they arrived,

our little ones, brash and fragile,

Hearts full of hope and trouble.

I didn't know if we could make that trip,

If we had enough strength within us,

and the voice leaned close again, "You will, but not yet."

I saw myself standing behind a pulpit,

all nervous with notes in my hands,

Suddenly, thoughts scattered like papers in the wind.

As I salvaged what I could, the Spirit whispered

through the shaking in my knees, "Do not quit, not yet."

In front of my first high school class,

armed with attitude and lecture notes,

I asked myself for the thousandth time

If I could really do this.

The answer came as it always did,

simple and steady, "You can, but not yet."

In the twilight now, I ask again,

“Can I still do what I was called to do?

Can I lay it all down now that I’m older,

tired, worn, and ready to be done?”

The persistent voice meets me in the night,

the one that’s carried me through scalpels and sermons,

through classrooms and crossroads,

And through every trembling start.

As I ask the questions, hoping for a yes,

The answer is the same,

Full of promise, gentle and firm,

"No, my son, you're not done. Not yet."