The Emptiness of Balloons

When I was a child, I thought as a child, I played as a child, I acted like a child and I was happy. When I became an adult, I became ashamed of those childish thoughts and I thought I put them away, but it did not make me happy.

I was still wearing my mom's high heels and my dad's dark rimmed glasses. They just fit me better now, so no one noticed. Not even me! It's amazing how good grown-ups can be at make believe. Over the course of the years, I tried on a lot of other outfits too.

Some were wonderful. I loved being a Mommy. Some were almost unbearable, but slowly I actually became each one of them. I seem to metamorphose like that, think I'm something and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The trick is to really believe it.

You just can't fool yourself for too long. Say you are something, or believe in something when you don't and your balloons will all burst. In the world I live in there is a reality check every few minutes. It was during one of these that I found myself plummeting downward, right into the arms of that smiling old woman with the out stretched arms!

Before I had time to cry, she scooped me up and gave me a whole armful of balloons! Then she took out her long amethyst hair pin and popped one! When it broke the air was filled with the smell of new wood and new paint and all I could think of was the wonderful playhouse my dad made for me when I was three!

She handed me the pin and I broke one. This time I heard love words that set my soul on fire! While I was trying to pop the next one, she grabbed a balloon and sat on it until it burst into a million beautiful notes! And I heard my first symphony all over again! Soon we were running around, laughing and bursting balloons in any way we could -- and each one was filled with the essence of some joyful memory.

Finally there was only one balloon left. The old woman grabbed it with both hands and handed it to me. I took her marvelous purple hat pin and poked it right into the middle of that balloon. The air around me exploded! The brilliance knocked me off my feet. The silence was deafening and I began to weep with joy.

It was the balloon of memories not yet made, of joys not yet dreamed, it was the promise that all would be well as long as I continued to live, to laugh and to love. And most important of all was to remember that it is the emptiness of the balloons that allows them to be filled with such marvelous things.

And when that balloon is burst, it only allows the beautiful things inside it to fly free and flood the world around it.