No Glass Tower

Glass towers may be quite lovely, but oh, so dangerous.

When the sun is shining, light bounces brightly against the glass, blinding you.

When the rain is softly splashing against the pristine panes, your view becomes blurred.

I,, too, once yearned to find a glass tower for my very own and dwell in the luxurious comfort zone it would afford. That was my vision of utopia before the multicolored blanket woven of wisdom and age enveloped me.

Now like so many other things I once focused my hopes upon, a glass tower no longer matters.

I finally understand the importance of reality. Experience taught the lesson pain inflicts with its cruelty. Soon that agony evaporates into a thick foam layer of insulation providing a barrier zone for whatever peril lies ahead.

The nerve endings of emotion that were so obvious in youth become wrapped in a protective froth that only pain teaches.

Oh, no, I never wished for pain, nor do I now. Yet I must be honest. Without having felt its searing flame, the acute devastating emotional sword that once penetrated so deeply that my breathing seemed to cease, I would not have the ability to face the todays of my life.

A glass tower would have precluded the love that should have been relinquished when he left, but still never ebbed. It would not have permitted the exquisite knowledge of my Anam Cara’s love to be realized if it had also excluded the possible cruel reality of his eventual loss.

A glass tower would have barricaded the heartbreak of a lost sheep. However, the unbounded joy, once shared by a Mother and child until the abrupt unexpected last stop on a fractured train of communication, would also have been unknown.

A glass tower would have shielded all the winds of uncertainty that whirled around my universe.while it also, prohibited the peace I felt when those robust gusts subsided and the quiet quilt of calm after a storm retreated..

Heroines of poetic lore inhabit glass towers, but women of today prefer a less brittle existence; one allowing the glare of reality to be softened by a cushion of love but still embracing the complete spectrum of life. No longer do we wish to be the sheltered Rapunzel of yore, but rather resilient creatures honestly accepting life’s challenging and bumpy ride towards our eternity.