These words followed me for a while. I hadn't seen them in years, then I started cleaning out my closets. I forced myself to examine every artifact and trinket that I had claimed in my life, still jangling around in my huge pockets. Why? I don't know. There were reasons, minute and insignificant. The Pull. That was everything. There is a force pulling me into this; beckoning me with a finger of unspecified character. Is it a force of good? Evil? Mischief? Yes? I don't know, but I will not deny it is there.
As I followed my path into the new year, I cleaned every dark corner of my life. I emptied boxes, burned some keepsakes and kept others, swept the literal corners, and poked at the figurative until the demons swirled. I welcomed it all, if somewhat reluctantly at times. Many times, in fact, when it grew so uncomfortable in those flames that I wanted to jump into a quiet hole and pull the leaves over my head. But I didn't, it isn't in my nature.
And then something else started happening. As I made more and more room, there were more ideas that wanted the space. And they all claimed to be the one. But none of them quite felt right and I started to feel like I had been led by the hand to the edge of a gnarly wood, and then left standing there alone. And I grew resentful and I tried to cling to the old comforts more strongly.
In the clearing, I started seeing my dreams lived by others.
My van, my cat, my travels, my spirit. My spirit was roaming the earth in others, but I was stuck here being smart and safe, maybe. And people remind me of what I've done myself. Yes indeed, then why do I feel lost and unfulfilled? Why am I convinced that no one will be interested in my voice? I have thoughts! I have value! I have stories to tell and I want very much to hear everyone else's stories. With no judgments, but not without anger.
There is anger... it's ok to share it. Not before joy, but do not shy away. I want us all to be truly free and that requires all of it – the whole spectrum without fear. Courage, yes. We will need it.
And here I come again to the thought that I am not good enough. No one will want to hear this. Who will connect with it? Will they think me an imposter or insincere or, worst of all, boring? Nonetheless, I have to speak it now. I have to.
It is Now or Never. Time to live. That was yesterday that it began. I simultaneously remember poems I wrote, books I read, people I have known and those that I haven't. I have stalked life for years. I was hurt in the past. The same old story, I guess. But I know I don't believe it's the same at all, and that is what compels me to tell it. That it is both the same and unique simultaneously.
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