{empty}

Empty.  She's been telling me secrets lately.  Wedging in along side me as I work.  Nudging me a little more as I take the time to rest.  Even giggling with me as I do just the same.

I am watching her turn on me.  There, in her open reservoir, she is shifting.  Making more room?  I can't quite say.  Making more of me? Most certainly so.  All of my life I have been afraid. Terrified of the feeling of left be it out or in.  Consumed by the uncertainty that she can only offer, I have stuffed & stuffed to keep her preoccupied. "Empty, no.  I don't want you."

And maybe it's because I'm at that sweet spot I named middle not too long ago.  Maybe it's that very middle that's finding me more steady to step back and accept her as friend no longer foe.  I don't know.  But here she sits.  Next to me cajoling me ever so sweetly just to know her more.

Our talks have been kind.  And hard.  And overwhelming.  I tell her straight up how she scares me with her looseness and her open-ended unknowing. I've even shouted a few obscenities across the room at her for how uneasy & vulnerable she makes me feel.  For how I hate who she is a little even.

She listens.  She doesn't get huffy or hateful back. She just scoots over giving me a little more room to breathe.  There, in her vacancy, I am learning more about contentment and leaning less on concrete.  I'm stretching out and I'm noticing new spaces I have yet to even settle inside myself.

Those spaces are look like opportunity, forgiveness & joy.  Corners I have avoided out of rawness mixed with fear & regret too.  Most likely spaces I have crammed with busy so I don't have to clean out the cobwebs of soul.  Moreover, so I don't have to sit next to empty and feel her very nudging.

And yet, the more that I accept her.  The more that I invest in learning the kind of friend empty is to me, I gain the true freedom to feel.  Those mountainous highs and those uncertain lows of sadness and fear.  But in this friendship we have begun, I am meeting availability in the most serene sense.  Unadulterated & unrefined, I am welcoming the room of me.  The places where stretching aches and yet feels so good.  There are findings of things I've so desperately missed and even forgotten I had.  And the whole hearted courage I can count on when I am reminded to look open, unknown & possible in the eyes.

Empty reminds me that her place in my life is not for fear.  It's for finding. For resting and running and reaching too.  She whispers with deep hopeful intentions on what can be just as much with what is.  Through the cluttered, the cracked and the crust, she brings me the gift of availability. And, with Him, I am never out or in.  I am open & able for the outstretched opportunities of this life.  Friends.  Empty & me.