becoming self aware
All this time spent at home, only one constant has remained. This unsettling feeling never left me. Like I was locked in a cage. At first I figured, cabin fever. No big deal. Completely normal. But with every passing day I’d be filtering through my thoughts, hesitant, and unsure why. Finally I had to ask myself, “what am I so afraid to see?”
The days where I’d feel most unwilling to stay in are the days I tried to dig in the hardest. To really open my eyes. As I looked back over my life I realized there’s never been a time when I wasn’t running. That I was truly disturbed by sitting in place. How can that be?
When I stared at my reflection I saw that I wasn’t looking in a mirror, but a window, and outside was unfamiliar scenery.
I wasn’t locked in a cage. I’d been running so fiercely away from my problems that I’d started to trek upwards, and had somehow reached the top of the steep mountain that is denial and avoidance, and made a home here.
All this time spent giving my all to other people, to materialistic things, to arbitrary experiences, where had it gotten me?
From the peak you’d expect to look down and see something breathtaking: a city skyline, the beauty of nature around you, something. My view was empty.
Through the clouds I could see other people atop their successes, surrounded by the dreams they turned into reality, and something else hit me. What is my dream?
I’ve spent so long neglecting myself that I haven’t made any plans. I’ve had no idea where I was going. I’ve just been running from one distraction to the next, acting off pure adrenaline and blind instinct for so long I’d abandoned the trails and left all of my supplies behind.
Then the most gut-wrenching realization of them all: I’d have to backtrack all the way down and start over. No progress made, only time wasted.
The journey down is so much scarier than going up. All this time unbeknownst to me, my demons had actually been hiding behind the trees, lurking, rather than getting lost in them. The thought of staying in place, in the comfort of what was easy had occurred to me, but they’d have caught up eventually. So to avoid the avalanche of letting them find and devour me, I decided it’s time to take control and face them. The only hope I have is that by the time I get to the bottom, I’ll have been able to figure out where to go from there. And that at least when I get there, the only way to go is up.