1 post tagged “trip”

At some time I lost my dreams. Put them aside, shelved them, stuffed them into drawers and left them. I have lost my way back to that place I previously dwelt, where my heart swelled with love and hope. The breadcrumbs have been eaten by magpies and I am in the thick of the forest now with no navigable stars shining through the canopy.

On my recent cross-country expedition, several things were revealed to me by the rolling landscape of the country, by my own questioning, and by others.

I have been living for others so long that I have forgotten how to live for myself.
I have set aside my own desires for the plans of others.
I have sacrificed opportunities at the altar of fear.
I have lost a lot of the emotion that fueled me in younger days.
I had willingly donned blinders, restricting my vision.
I had forgotten myself.

I met many people during my trip and most seemed quite pleased to meet me. There was a time when I had never met a stranger. Now the faces of strangers are all that I see. This trip rekindled a spark of that somewhere inside. I've pulled out the bellows and have been nursing that spark, hoping to smolder it into the roaring fire it once was.

These will be lean times. Hard times. I have survived worse. The money it took to travel the country could have been used for other purposes, but the investment in myself seemed best in the long-term. I am reminded that these things will only make me stronger. A more considerate friend. A more thoughtful lover. A better worker.

I am the sum of all things I am and have been. Recently, when speaking to an old friend and former lover, she asked how I'd changed over the years. I responded, "I haven't changed, so much as grown." I think that's a fair assessment of how I have come to be the man I am today.

I am.
I am beginning to realize what I want.
I am learning that I do not have to settle for less.
I am reconciling who I have been with who I am now.
I am growing into a better man with each breath I draw.

The best I can hope for is that anyone who has crossed my path will look back upon my memory with fondness.
The best I can do is to leave everything and everyone who crosses my path better than when I met them.
The best I can do is to live.