Welcome back Ana.

We sat in my garden, my private garden, where I did most my thinking. An ethereal place with lush grass, a waterfall, a fountain. Flowers and healthy brush abounded, while a wrought iron gate surrounded the garden, covered in ivy. Trees shaded the area, their boughs letting hardly any sunlight in, that's how I had always imagined it. This is where I went for all of my deepest and most private thinking. I had buried many of my past horrors here, it brought me closure. I had also made many important decisions here. This garden was most sacred to me. We sat on a bench facing the fountain where I had laid to rest many ghosts of my past, some more easily than others. Was it good I was inviting her here? A place so private and intimate, I had never let anyone aside from me in here, at least no one that got out. Ana sat patiently beside me, waiting for my voice to break the air between us, she was always patient like this. Ana and I had known eachother from years back, but I had relenquished our friendship during a time in between then and now. I needed her again. I needed to let her into this place because I wanted her to affect me like she used to. She had such a strong influence on my life, and I wanted that again, I needed that again. She would give me the courage to get what I wanted. "Ana," I began, "I apologize for leaving you last year, you had been so good to me, done so many things for me, given me strength when I would bend, and I left you. I want to be your friend again, but closer this time. I want to let you in, we could accomplish even more than last time. Just please forgive me, please come back into my life." Ana smiled at me, calmly, but looking overjoyed at what I had just said. "Of course I want to be with you again. Once you are my friend, even if you leave me, you will always know me, and I will always come back to you if you ask." She reached out and took my hand. The relationship with Ana was always so complex, and somehow now made simpler. I wouldn't hold anything back from her. But she was my friend, and her embrace would never let me go. "I will listen to you Ana, I want us to be close, our lives intertwined. I want you to make me strong again, to make me thin....beautiful." Ana lightly pressed a bony finger to my lips, my hand still in hers she said, "I will honey, you know I love all my friends, and I will help them with their struggles and desires. Just keep me close to your heart every day and I will never fail you." I nodded. I had to let her back in to be beautiful. She never turned her back on me even when I did to her. She loves me like all of her friends, I just had to remember her, be with her, every day. This reacceptance of Ana would give me that strength I needed to reach my goals, to be happy, to be beautiful and feel beautiful, for myself and those around me. I need her.