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"I dwell in possibility" ~ Emily Dickinson
When Penny was a little girl, the whole world lay before her.
Sun-haired and sunny-natured, she won the hearts of everyone she met, could wrap anyone around her finger. Not because she was spoiled, but because everyone who met her loved her.
Why? Because she loved the world.
It shimmered with promise, with new places to explore and new things to experience.
The smallest things enchanted her. One golden summer she spent hours just watching a caterpillar making its way back and forth across a low-hanging branch.
Her dad had come across her nose to nose with it, giggling.
"What you doing there, Slugger?"
"Watching the 'pillar," she chirped.
"That's nice, so long as all you do is watch," he cautioned. "You wouldn't wanna accidentally hurt it. Now, come on, Slugabed: day's far too fine for lying on your belly – this here's pitching weather!"
Penny happily ran off with her dad, but the next day she came back and without her father there the temptation proved too great. She searched along the branch, found the caterpillar, and picked it up, placing it in the palm of her hand.
The caterpillar curled up tightly in protest, yellow bristles quivering. No matter how much she coaxed, it refused to uncoil.
Her mother found her by the tree, lower lip wobbling and six-year-old heart breaking.
Her father would have punched her arm and told her to buck up; her mom pulled her into her arms and soothed the story from her.
"Oh, Penny," she said, when her daughter tearfully extended her hand and showed her treasure, "caterpillars don't like to be held."
"But I love it!" Penny wailed, hiccupping. "Why doesn't it love me?"
"Oh, honey, it's just not in its nature. It doesn't understand that you love it; it thinks you're trying to hurt it." She saw her daughter's sobs were subsiding into unhappy sniffs and continued: "The kindest thing you can do is put it back where you found it." And she helped Penny place it back on the tree.
The next day Penny returned to the tree, drawn in some way she didn't understand. She didn't try to touch the caterpillar again; instead she spent hours chatting away to it, watching it nibble on leaves, trying to involve it in her games. On one occasion she spotted a bird nearby, beady eye cocked her way. She ran towards it, waving her arms up and down and hollering as loudly as she could. She knew what birds ate.
But one day she went to the tree and couldn't find the caterpillar. She searched every leaf within her reach, but it was nowhere to be seen.
Even at this age Penny was tenacious, so she came back the next day... and the day after that... and the day after that.
Finally, during her usual leaf inspection, a flash of colour caught her eye: there was something glued to the branch – something orange and black was wriggling inside. Penny held her breath and waited.
Spellbound, she watched the beautiful creature that emerged, watched it fan itself gently, testing its wings. She knew what this was – she saw them every summer. She'd just had no idea that this was where they came from.
Without thinking, she held her hand out. The butterfly took its first short flight, settling on her outstretched hand, warming itself in the sun.
It didn't stay, of course; but when it launched itself high into the sky, all Penny felt was joy.
She ran home excitedly yelling.
When her parents explained to her that the butterfly was actually the caterpillar, that one could become the other, it was at this moment Penny started to believe that anything was possible.
The world shimmered with promise, and Penny shimmered along with it.
"It's the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee" ~ Nicholas Sparks
When Penny was 26, the world no longer quite shimmered.
Kurt had taken some of the shine off; a dozen guys just like him had taken a little more, and the Cheesecake Factory felt like it left her a little grimier every day.
But she still found joy in the world, took delight in the littlest things – like laundry night and kicking (Sheldon's) ass at Halo; like dancing the night away; like finding friendship in unexpected places.
Yes, the world didn't always shimmer – you couldn't always expect to get everything you wanted in life. She had had to accept that. More than once. But just when you were about to give up, when you thought it had been a cruel trick all along, you started a business, you landed a commercial (you received a hug).
So Penny still dreamed; still believed. Still believed that her big break could be just around the corner, that the future was written in the stars (that it was possible to fall in love at first sight).
"A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us" ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
But for all her dreaming, for all the world's promise, there was one desire Penny had never allowed herself.
One that was so clearly out of reach she had managed to push it from her mind entirely. Managed to transmute it into the vaguely similar, the less intimidating (the less out of reach); the more manageable, easier, safer one (the one infinitely less dear).
Because no matter how much it intrigued her, the cute, spiky caterpillar would never become a butterfly, would never tolerate her touch. Would never change.
It was impossible.
Penny had accepted that years ago, had made her peace with it.
Or so she thought.
"Are you saying someday you and Amy might actually get physical?"
"It's a possibility." ~ Sheldon Cooper
She'd been so excited when she'd first heard the words; deeply shocked, but happy for her friend.
But the words burrowed deep; they took hold and wouldn't let go, opening up the door she thought she'd long since sealed, scattering preconceived notions and self-imposed restrictions to the wind.
Since that day, since those words, the world no longer shimmered.
Since that day, a potential future once thought impossible beckoned.
And blazed.