After everything she had done – everything she had dared to do –  she found herself back ‘here’ again. ‘Here’ was not a space in the physical world, rather the point within her that reached into infinity. There were so many possibilities that at times it could render her motionless. Life was like that. A jungle. Wild, captivating, full of twists, turns and tangles. There was rarely a clear path – only a system of roots or vines, weaving in and out of surrounding lifeforms. Sometimes she wondered whether she was really standing on the point reaching to infinity, or if she was standing upon infinity itself. If she looked down, would she fall?

She did not know whether to laugh or cry about finding herself here yet again. Was she brave, or was she scared? The things that used to threaten her now had no space to take hold. She could proceed with life if she wished, but the way forward was so confusing. She hated to admit it, but the child inside her wished someone would come to the rescue. Yet she’d lived long enough to know that that was never going to happen and that she had to be master of her own life. After all, she was not a defeatist. Maybe in her outer world she appeared to be a golden girl, but where it mattered she was nobody’s gold medal. At best, a tarnished bronze. No one sought to win her – she was merely someone people settled for. And that made her sad. She tried to be the gold medal to herself, but she didn’t know if she was settling too.

She looked at the surrounding twisting vines and the overgrowth and knew she could stand still no longer. Either she would have to cut through and make a path, or surrender to the wild. It was hard to know which was the correct way ahead. Which way was freedom? Rather than being clarifying, was cutting away at other forms a tiresome battle against that which simply was? And yet, did not the vines that relentlessly reached for the light only strangle everything they came into contact with?

This neverending day seemed to have lasted months with no sense of salvation. She survived best she could and tried to make existence the same as living. But it wasn’t, and deep down she knew that. She had waited so long that the day had turned to night. She knew that unless she made a choice, day would never break again – that she’d forever stand lost in the dark. So how would she enter the jungle? She still didn’t have the answer.