She couldn’t remember how she got here, but there was an overwhelming clarity in this new place.

It was as though all the missing pieces she’d lost along the way had somehow made it back to her, filling her lungs with air and lighting her soul on fire.

It was unmistakable now. She knew exactly who she was and what she believed.

Distant hums of string instruments quieted the commotion of her consciousness.

She was home.

The brick walls around her were painted all the colors of her convictions — vibrant murals depicting all she cherished, loved, and lived for. And as she stood, as confident and unwavering as her harbor of masonry, she knew what wholeness felt like.

But it can be scary, isolating at times, in this space of stark certainty.

And in that moment she longed for something different.

Not something new, no — that wasn’t it.

Just something from another era.

The brightly painted walls began to peel and crumble.

The blood red clay beneath revealed; threatening.

The mortar continued to fall away faster than she could repair while the metallic tones of the violin inched their way closer,

and closer,

no longer calming now, but growing louder and faster, piercing her eardrums with their shrill high notes.

Each brick fell one by one to piles of dust at her feet, leaving her exposed and surrounded by unfamiliar paths.

But finally, silence.

It was then that she understood what the music was trying to tell her:

“Once you’ve arrived home is when the true journey begins.”