Invictus

I listened to Morgan Freeman recite William Ernest Henley's poem, Invictus,  last night and I was deeply moved.  Not just because it is an inspiring poem, or even because Nelson Mandela used it to help him make it through the long years of his imprisonment, but also because it spoke to me -- myself.

I have not been quite so strong or noble.  I have whined and I have bowed my head.  I have bowed my whole soul under the looming darkness of some times in my life, but the words I once heard my husband say to my counselor, and which I thought were cold and untrue at the time, really were true.

"She is strong.  She always bounces back in the end."

I would not agree that I "bounce back."  Sometimes I have clawed my way back, inch by inch, but I suppose it is the getting back that really counts.

Back to what?  I think it is to my essential self, to the me who finds she does have things to do, people to love, reasons to be.

I still feel fear sometimes, but I know I won't drown in it like I once feared. 

I may not be able to control what is done to me, by fate, or age, or people, or whatever comes my way, but I am able to choose how I respond to these things and even when that is hard it is ultimately what counts in the end.

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.