It was that time of year where the weather had finally changed where Lauren lived.
She'd started her morning walk,
The one that she does almost every day.
Halfway through she saw a bench and she sat down.
This wasn't normal behavior.
But things had not been normal lately.
She pulled her jacket closer around her body,
Took it under her bum so that the bench didn't feel cold,
And sat there for a few moments just enjoying the embrace of her own arms wrapped around the middle of her body.
Keeping her warm.
Most of the trees on her walk had lost their leaves already.
The damp seemed to be everywhere.
The ground was always soft underneath her boots,
With all the leaves,
And just the general wetness of this time of year.
She didn't feel like walking.
That was unusual.
She enjoyed her walks,
Listening to her audio books,
Or some enlightening podcast,
Or just music.
Depending on what mood she was in depended on the type of music she'd listen to.
Her mind kept drifting off and she wanted to sit and be in that other world.
The other world inside of her mind that no one knew about.
As a young girl,
She daydreamed a lot.
And at the time,
Especially in school,
It was observed as being very unfocused.
Lauren doesn't pay attention.
Lauren doesn't use all of her potential.
Lauren chats too much with others in class.
Lauren was chatting with others in class because she felt comfortable chatting with the others in class rather than trying to focus on her brain when her brain felt like she needed a different way of learning.
It was like the hole is round but the peg is square.
That situation.
And everything that school provided was not like water to her brain.
But Lauren didn't know that when she was younger.
She just thought maybe she wasn't that smart.
It's not till she sits now and looks back at all of the years and realizes that smart comes in many different ways.
And now,
At this point in her life,
She realizes that the daydreams are actually so much more than that.
Lauren knows that sometimes her thoughts aren't her thoughts.
They're someone else's that she's psychically connecting to.
She feels what they feel and senses what they're doing.
Sometimes she'll randomly feel another person thinking about her.
And time and time again she's had evidence of this by an instant phone call.
Or she would bump into that person.
Or they would tell her that they'd been dreaming about her and it would coincide with the same time as she felt the feelings of them connecting to her.
She wanted to feel those feelings right now rather than walk and be distracted by her book or whatever it was that she was choosing to listen to.
She found something to stare at.
It was a simple stone on the ground.
And even though life was busy all around her,
People walking their dogs,
Mums pushing their children in prams,
Odd people walking here and there doing their morning walk,
It all faded into the background and she felt herself being pulled into her daydreams.
Recently,
Someone had come into her life that stirred up certain emotions inside of her.
Feelings that she'd not felt for a long time.
Lauren was married.
She'd been married for 25 plus years.
But this new male had brought things up in her mind and her body that she hadn't felt for a long time.
The relationship with this man was very,
Very innocent.
Nothing had happened in Lauren's real reality.
But what was happening was a relationship of sorts in her mind.
It was taking place purely for growth.
Let me explain.
Everything that Lauren felt will call him the stranger.
Everything that Lauren felt and feels when she interacts with this stranger are feelings that she didn't realise were so important to her.
Being with a husband for 25 years,
You develop a pattern,
A persona.
You also develop a character of who you are in that relationship.
And all the other parts of Lauren's personality that had been suppressed or been pushed away into shadows were being brought to the surface because of the stranger.
And it wasn't like Lauren wanted to have an affair or be with someone else.
This was more about Lauren just wanting to bring those parts of her character into her reality.
To step into the aspects of herself that she'd lost over the time that she'd been with her husband.
She craved to feel desired.
Desired.
She craved to feel adventurous and outgoing,
Carefree.
She craved all of the parts of what she desired when she was younger that she put on the shelf when she got married to come back.
She missed her old self.
And the stranger was bringing the gift to her to make her dive inside into that other world of daydream and deep thought to find out why she let herself let herself go.
As she searched through the years of memories from her marriage so much of it was full of lots of love and happy memories.
But under examination she also felt this interesting lair.
It was like a lair that forms when you get a callous on your hand.
Was it there for protection?
Was it there because it just built up over time?
She felt this lair over her heart over her younger self over her body.
And it was like a lair that had been built up from scars and the scars were there from all the times where she'd been hurt or disappointed.
There was many times where she'd felt embarrassed about certain things that she'd expressed to her husband to her husband that wasn't necessarily aligned with his way of being.
So she'd let that go.
She'd let that part of herself go.
But there were scars there and each one of the scars were like evidence of those parts of herself that she'd let fall to the ground.
The stranger saw her differently.
The stranger saw all those parts of her that weren't able to be present in her marriage.
And all of those parts were what the stranger was attracted to.
Lauren got distracted by a dog that came over to sniff on her leg.
She stroked the dog and talked to the owner a little bit and then they carried on walking.
She stared up at the sky and watched the clouds,
Took a deep breath and images of the other world came back into her mind and she let herself fall into them.
She let herself see her being touched in ways that she'd not been touched for a long time.
She let herself lay down and be with the other stranger.
She let herself imagine a different world.
And like I said,
Lauren had no intention of leaving her husband.
But she felt the need to dive into these thoughts.
Dive into what was coming up.
Lauren questioned why she would need a stranger to come into her world to make her see that she let herself not feel desirable anymore.
Why did Lauren need a man to feel desirable?
What was it about her psyche that allowed her to shut down that part of herself if it wasn't being fed by someone outside of herself?
Why was Lauren not feeling sexy,
Desirable,
Beautiful,
Powerful,
In her power all by herself?
Why did Lauren need a man to feel desired?
If she could love herself,
Truly love herself without anyone else loving her,
Why couldn't she feel desirable without being desired by someone else?
In today's world it's pretty hard as a woman to feel so much pressure to change the way that you look,
To stay young,
To stay 30 pounds lighter,
To not look your age.
But does that have to be Lauren's reality?
She thought.
Do I have to allow that to be the excuse of why I feel this way about myself?
Because even though it's everywhere it is just an excuse.
She smiled as she thought about all of the self-care that she does,
The cleanses,
The exercise,
The different diets,
The different wardrobe changes,
The different hairstyles,
All the thousands of books that she's read and understood and consumed with the hopes of becoming a better version of herself.
With that reflection she had a moment where a light bulb went off and she realised that maybe she was running from herself,
Constantly trying to improve that which she was.
What did she think and what was she trying to change and improve for and who and why?
The stone that she was staring at at the ground got kicked as someone walked by.
She looked up,
He had headphones in and he was very focused on his walk,
Completely oblivious to her sat there in the other world to enjoy the trees,
The day,
The cool breeze that was making her cheeks red and then just staring at nothing there in front of her she felt herself pull back into the other world.
Did she feel unappreciated?
Did she feel like the old sock?
You know the one that you keep in the drawer that has the hole in but you don't throw it away?
Was she a sock?
Why had she let herself feel like a sock?
This was the question in between the daydreaming and the visions of pleasure and excitement and all the things that was coming to her mind the pictures the sensations the smells it was very real her other world but she was also a little bit angry about it the other world made her sad and it made her feel like she was just she needed to fix her real world so she didn't feel like the old sock solution solution solution she thought to herself bring me solution give me action maybe if she desired herself maybe if she wore nicer lingerie took time on her body pampered pruned maybe she would start to adore herself she tried this before but it was a long time ago and if she remembered correctly she didn't put that much effort into it because her husband didn't notice there you go again Lauren waiting for something outside of yourself to give you the love and the desire for yourself that you need Lauren decided before she got up off that bench she was going to make a plan no more running no more 30 day gym challenges no more 7 day juice fasts no more what plan would work that would stick what plan didn't have to involve a stranger and fantasies and another world inside of her mind to make her feel alive to make her feel like a new sock what could she do she knew from all the thousands of self help books that she'd read that there was a lot that she could do she needed to first of all be grateful for the stranger for the fantasies and the thoughts and the feelings and emotions that he'd woke up that now made her reflect and look at herself it was just time to take action time to do something about being an old sock only Lauren could do that no amount of strangers would change that the strangers would just eventually turn into their husbands that make her feel like an old sock Lauren stood up she put her earbuds back in turned on her audio book and finished her walk the end
