NESTING PLACE

She always fathomed that her eccentricities did not fit into her family’s sensibilities. They were dour and dark, concerned only with practical dogma. But Stephanie seemed to be floating along on gossamer clouds, tied up with silver ribbons. enveloping creative ideas and outrageous thoughts. She was unique and not simpatico with the world at large. Her artistry astounded everyone she met as she painted, wrote longing poems and drew fanciful murals on her walls.

Her visions paid no heed to structure. “Why am I here with these people who talk about budgets and dress like pilgrims?” she questioned.

Stephanie wore colorful, draping raiment of lustrous colors, sparkling like her eyes and enhancing her zest for life. Dancing around her aura were diaphanous crimson curls flying with her passion. When she reached the sweet age of eighteen, she announced to her family, “I’m leaving on a sailboat to sail around the world and explore other possibilities as I meander on the seas of life. I’ll call you when I get back unless my compass points me in a different direction where happiness emanates. I’ll know what I’m searching for when I touch its reflections.” As she rhapsodized on a different plane than that of her parents, they shook their heads as they tried to decipher her meaning. She packed her jeans, t-shirts and bathing suits and departed for places unknown.

After years of gallivanting on the bounding main and touching the stars, Stephanie decided to come home to the place where she had initiated her odyssey to resolve her quest determining why she had never been able to conform to her family’s temperament.

“Mom,” she queried tremulously, “why am I not like the others?

Her mother looked worried as she hesitated before answering, “I never wanted you to know but I adopted you when my shameless sister abandoned you. I haven’t heard from her since. We always loved you but you are not one of us.”

Devastation clouded Stephanie’s eyes as she screamed, “Why have you made me wait until I am thirty-five before spilling this revelation? No wonder I clash with your values!”

She stormed out of the house, furious that she had never been told the true story of her beginnings. She now could decipher from the rubble of her feelings why she had always felt abnormal, like a fish out of water.

Eventually her anger lifted as she realized that this woman had loved her to the best of her ability and had taken her in when her real mother had cast her aside. Abjectly, she thanked her adoptive mother, repacked her bags and burst out of her cage in search of her birth mother hoping that she would be her kindred spirit. She had no idea what she would unearth as she happily sashayed into her future in search of a niche where she could find her nesting place.