A Home

My hour of kickboxing was finally over. Linda instructed us to lie down on our backs, to stretch our tired and tense bodies. I extended my hands above my head, pushed me legs away from my torso. I felt the stretch in my tight abdomen, in my cramped hamstrings, my sore arms.

Linda stepped over me on her way to the stereo. She told us to take deep breaths, in through our noses and out through our mouths. She stopped the hyped-up dancing music we'd been kicking and punching to for the last sixty minutes and replaced it with something softer for stretching.

It was live. Guitars. A familiar melody that I couldn't quite place.

"Extend your right leg," she directed, and I followed, putting my sneakered-foot into the air and feeling the stretch in my calf. I tried to focus on the elongation of my muscle, but couldn't stop trying to figure out the song.

As I placed my right leg over my left, just like Linda told me to, the words began. The singing commenced and I knew the song.

I sang along to the Dixie Chicks, and I cried right there in the gym. I thanked God that the sweat on my face would mask the silent tears that fell.

I was thinking of you.

I mistook the warnings for wisdom
From so-called friends quick to advise
Though your touch was telling me otherwise

Somehow I saw you as a weakness
I thought I had to be strong
Oh, but I was just young,
I was scared,
I was wrong

Not a night goes by
I don't dream of wandering
Through the home that might have been
And I listened to my pride
When my heart cried out for you
Now every day I wake again
In a house that might have been
A home

Guess I did what I did believing
That love is a dangerous thing
Oh, but that couldn't hurt any more than never knowing

Not a night goes by
I don't dream of wandering
Through the home that might have been
I listened to my pride
When my heart cried out for you
Now every day I wake again
In a house that might have been
A home
A home

Four walls,
a roof,
a door,
some windows
Just a place to rest when my working day is through
They say home is where the heart is
If the exception proves the rule I guess that's true

Not a night goes by
I don't dream of wandering
Through the home that might have been
I listened to my pride
When my heart cried out for you
Now every day I wake again
In a house that might have been
A home
A home