For 10 years, she drank and smoked. Cigarettes. Cloves at first. Because she wasn’t a real smoker.

She was trying on something completely new. Different. Something…true. For once.

At the age of 30. She was in a new place. A new place much bigger and bolder than the town she was used to. The town she grew up in. The town she didn’t really know, but one she felt more a prisoner than a citizen of. She was in a place where for once she felt she could be something other than the frightened, lonely child she’d always been. Her escape—her delayed coming of age—meant imbibing her first real drinks. Whiskey. Red wine. Gin. And smoking her first cigarettes.

And it consumed her. Completely.

The back story is moot. The life she’d led to this point is not relevant.

Not really.

She was there. She was ready. And so, she dove into this new way of being. Effortlessly. Naturally. Totally.

And it overtook her. Thoroughly. And she, ready, threw herself into this new way of being with the grace and determination of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.

And she loved it. And it loved her.

Stuff happened. She lost her way. And she was powerless to turn herself around. She succumbed ferociously to it. Willingly. With relief.

Her new way of being became her only way of being. And she gave up her ghost.

And died.

And then, a knight in shining armour appeared. Almost literally magically. And showed her that her new way of being was not her only way of being. The knight reached down with one strong arm and pulled her up onto his great horse. And he rode off with her. He took care of her. He saw in her that all of her ways of being were not her authentic way of being.

And he helped her find her way.

And she fell off the horse. Because she was afraid. Because she missed the “she” she had learned to love. She missed the “she” she loved the most.

And he looked down on her. And he frowned. He wept. And he cursed. And he let her be.

And after a while, she looked up to him. And she said, “Thank you.”

And he did not hesitate to lean toward her. Again. With love and concern expressed through every small line of his kind face. And he said,

“I’m here. And I always will be.”

And he reached down again. And she let herself—the self, the being, the woman she knew deep down she truly wanted to be—be lifted again.

Onto the horse.

And together, they rode off.