Wandering Ahead, Permission to Leave the Past Behind, a Poem

On any given day, I never quite know who I am or who I am becoming. Caught amidst a landslide and an infinitely slopping cliff’s edge. Never quite catching my grip on anything that meets the eyes, this material world is of another world, because so am I.

I never quite know who I am becoming. I can never quite get it right. The right I strive so hard to find is the right that has been with me, my company by my side. Built up pathways in my brain, habits stacked together like building blocks. Rising strong. Until one day…

and these days are becoming more oft than they are not, a cataclysmic storm swoops in and knocks it all down. The past buried under a rubble of its own making. Is it even worth sifting through the wreckage? Is there anything of value even left to carry with me?

On my back I have but one sack. What can fit may go, leave everything else behind. So what do I carry forward? What do I bring from my past into my future? Who am I becoming when I wander off into the wilderness unknown? Is there anything I need to keep me safe? Is there anything I want to keep me entertained? Or is the road ahead paved with those prizes? I guess that’s the scariest part of all is not knowing what I’ll face.

Not knowing if I am right to leave behind all these castles I torched out of the sky. Am I wrong to let it all go, begin anew, fresh as if I am walking in these feet for the first time? As if I am exploring life from a newborn’s eyes? Where will I go? What will I see? These questions haunt me.

The knowing before the knowing has kept me safe. Reinforced steel rods I have built into my infrastructure. These are all that stands erect in the rubble of past identities. Ghosts of skeleton’s past holding space for the rebuild. But only if I stay. Only if I stay and leave the wandering for another day. Only if I choose to sit in piles of past and glue back the pieces of what was.

Maybe that’s what I need is to sit in these pieces and grieve. Otherwise my bag will prove too heavy on my travels ahead. My back will give way to the pounds of past that weigh on me constantly.

If I am to move ahead I must leave behind the past that has me. Ensnared within its stories, gripped within its sensuous clutches. But I spent so much time, energy, and resources building me up, only to bring me down. Of course I hadn’t known that I’d go destroying all that I’d built. No idea that there would exist a time in which I’d grow tired of these four walls. These four walls that kept me confined to my own sense of self knowing. But that me grew smaller and smaller as the walls grew bigger and taller.

I guess it was bound to happen. With enough pressure a volcano is bound to explode. So that’s what I did. I exploded these four walls with me in it. I broke down these barriers to the world around me. I destroyed all semblance of beliefs on this is how my life should be, and here it all is, broken bricks at my feet.

What do you truly desire? I hear myself say, and this answer wont come from a book or a movie or some expression that another has played. This must come from me, from a spark within, an undeniable lift.

What do I truly desire is to see the unseen. To touch the untouchable, to go places where dreams live and to share it with someone. It’s not enough, I have found, to do this on my own, connection is what I crave and I want to begin this journey with another. My pride has been wounded with choices I’ve made in haste, I’ve spent a lot of time, money, and resources when I navigate life from this place. I want to act smart and to come from a space where I wander on ahead in full faith. Because it’s who I know me to be.

But wait too long and clouds of opportunity are sure to pass by, shapes that were one thing become something else entirely. The key is to remain open, present, and heart-centered to the moment that is now. To tune in with the listening ear and to turn up the volume loud. To entrain to the harmony that is all around, the rhythms of nature that are vastly abound. There is a balance and a timing to things, nature doesn’t grow in haste, she unfurls at her own pace and nothing ever goes to waste.

I too belong in this way, my body is the vehicle carrying me place to place, so shouldn’t she have a say? Shouldn’t her intelligence be on display? Navigating life in an embodied way awakens a knowing that lives everywhere, not solely on the mental plane.

So I’ll take my heed and walk away, not from my dreams but from this desk, dig my fingers into the earth instead of this keyboard. What is of the past has already been written. What I do with this now is who I am becoming.