Breath.

Every three years, like clockwork, my family was handed the orders dictating that we must relocate as my father could better serve his country in another location. And we moved while I watched enviously as my friends' fathers had their orders extended, giving them three more years of the life they had created. I have always hated that I've had to visit home, and that I could never have it. Home has been at the tip of my fingers for eighteen years, just out of my reach. After a while, I began to realize that family is the only home I'd ever have, wherever that may be. Going to college felt like I was loosing every little bit of home I had. I now had to define myself, not by my parents jobs or by the clothes they bought me or the church they decided to attend, but by myself. I've always had a fear of being alone, and just two days after my 18th birthday, I felt I would be. Each day leading up to my execution felt like something was being stripped from me. I felt my identity being taken from me. My life was being dramatically transformed, radically altered, until I barely recognized it. Who I was seemed a lie. All the self assured confidence that I possessed was swept away in a wave of doubt. I was no longer Kristine, I was a ball of clay, back at square one ready to be remade. Into what was the question. At the end of this, who would I be? Would I loose myself along the way? Where would I end up? There was a maze of roads in front of me, each within my grasp; I could choose my fate. What if I choose wrong, with so many options how would I know the right one? There were so many possibilities of the thing I feared more than any other, failure. So I prayed, often. I prayed and breathed. "Please let this be right." Breath. "Was this correct?" Breath. "What is your will?" Breath. And then held my breath while waiting for an answer.