Some Thing Borrowed

It was the kind of world a kid knows isn’t normal but accepts because it’s all he or she has ever known. Yep. That was the world I was born into. And so when things got crazier than normal…(vs. normaler than crazy)…I just left.
Indeed I did.
At the ripe old age of 7, 8, 9, and beyond when other children were fast asleep, you would often find me climbing out the bedroom window and onto the wavy tin basement door to embark on a nocturnal scavenger hunt for hope.
Hope was the commodity I borrowed from those who lived in the houses up and down the streets I walked when I was very near the edge of that wonderful childhood condition called resilience.
Hope emanated from the warm yellow light that streamed from the windows of those homes. Peering in I borrowed the peace, the comfort, the safety, and the fraternity that those inside took for granted.
It was of no consequence whatsoever that most of those homes were filled with strife and anxiety, unrest and fear. The little girl standing on the sidewalk looking in could not have known this nor would she have wanted to.
The borrowing was what kept her life between the lines.