The Truth

It’s true what people say. You can do anything you want, anything you have ever dreamed of. But the thing they don’t tell you is that you will have to work for it.

Today I started a journey, a very long journey that will end exactly where it began. I have no real idea why I am undertaking a long walk around an island but today in the early throws of this latest adventure, I believe I got a brief glimpse of what could be.

I want to make this experience. This discovery sounds more significant and more exciting than it was, but the reality is that this moment of awareness came to me with simple clarity, like a truth I’ve been told many times before. Yet, it was a truth I felt I was experiencing for the very first time.

For the first time in my life, I was free.

I had nowhere I had to be; I had nothing I had to do. Not a single person needed anything from me, and I felt no need to give for the sake of giving.

I was free.

At first, it was a strange feeling; I had no idea how to deal with it, where to put it, how to enjoy it without some kind of first-world guilt. 

I stood in silence and watched the world go about its business as my nervous smile became a giggle, became a laugh. 

I knew at that moment that what I had chased my entire life was always right there in front of me, staring me in the eyes, mocking me for my blindness. 

I laughed again, harder than before to the point where tears of pure joy rolled down my cheeks, mixing with my sweat and arriving at my lips as if to replenish a life force that appeared somewhat lost.

I was free.