We began the journey the same way we ended it.
You with unwavering confidence and myself with great trepidation.
You said we should go there and waste no time. Understanding my fear, you offered to take stops as many times as I needed them. And you did. Sometimes walking ahead of me I’d say “Slow down!” you’d walk backwards and find my hand.
“This is the exact place I want to be,” you’d say. “Look at it! Do you see how beautiful it is here?”
I saw. I started to run with you, going deeper inside. For a long time, we ran side by side with a speed I didn’t know my legs had in them. We celebrated the beauty as it passed by us. “Can you believe this place? I never thought I’d be here.”
We eventually slowed down again. We shared our excitement of the run and exchanged gratitude to be sauntering together.
We made a home there. Walking together was home now.
Time passed.
I became sore, tired; an old wound bubbled up and became my focus. It was all beautiful still, but I spent more time looking at the wound than looking at it.
You were hurting too. Staring at my own feet I didn’t see the weariness in yours.
One day I looked up and you were farther away than I’d seen you before. I thought you were a little behind or perhaps even a little ahead, but not that far away. I wondered how long I’d been looking down.
“I need to get out of here.” You said. “It’s too frightening.” “Who knows how long the path is? I don’t know that I want to be on it until it ends. I don’t even know if I can.”
“What do you mean? You weren’t scared before. What’s happened?”
“I need to go” you said
“But, I don’t want to go.”
I stayed there and called for you.
You said “You have to get out of here, and waste no time.”