I Have a Dream (too)

I know MLK, Jr. had a dream, and I had one too. It just doesn't work for me anymore. It wasn't as universal as MLK's perhaps, or uplifting or inspiring. It was about helping others and making a difference, and that part of the dream still exists.

But the part about how that's going to look, how it will happen, what it requires, has evaporated into smoke. It's gone, and the little that's left is fading quickly, and I can't remember the details of it anymore, like the faint remnants of a dream that you awaken from too quickly.

This awake-dream is fading just as fast, finding no firm footing for it in my life. And I'm moving into my life more and more, leaving some dreams behind, dreaming new dreams whose details are crisp and clear, and whose relevance I can understand.

Journey (Not the Band)

I embarked on this new journey many months ago now. And it has been absolute upheaval since then, but of the most necessary kind. I've given up almost everything but my kitty, who has kept me good company on every part of this journey. Her furry blackness is always a comfort.

I am waiting to sail into the place in my self and in the world where everything finally makes sense. Where I finally feel at home. Where I finally understand my place and where I belong. Where I finally feel fully connected.

I have striven to be an expert, offering my experience and understanding to help others with those very same questions and issues, but I have so little to really offer. I know a lot. I've experimented with a lot. But I don't know the answers for myself - how can I really offer this stuff up from the deepest kind of knowing.

I can't. I can ask questions, offer insights, free up someone's thinking, but I'm not an expert. There's so much I don't know, and so many answers I don't have. And there's no relief greater than admitting to that.

I don't know what folks should be doing with their lives. We can never go wrong being kinder, more loving, more curious, more genuine. But I don't have answers to problems or solutions to issues. I just know how to dig and dig and dig to get to something more true within myself.

It's only one skill, but a fairly useful one. Requires a lot of stamina. A LOT!

Not So Easy

The hardest thing about not knowing where you're going or what you're doing is the not knowing part. Especially if you're someone who likes to have a sense of purpose, a sense of direction, a sense of control.

Because when you don't know, you don't have much of a sense of anything other than some interior compass pushing or pulling you in some or another direction. Which is, at best, difficult to describe or explain to others. And, at worst, you wonder if it's just your imagination at work, pulling you in the wrong direction.

The fear of the unknown is a powerful deterrent against new choices.

Human Need

The raw face of human need is tragic to behold. At its worst, a potential reminder of who we ourselves might be at our lowest. The loss, the loneliness, the lack of... as corrosive as acid, eating away at the soul.

It's heartbreaking to live in a world where human need exists, where basic requirements like love, belonging, understanding, kindness and caring are missing. Heartbreaking even more still to be the one in need.

Isn't this stuff as essential as food and water and shelter? Isn't this the stuff that makes keeping the physical alive worth doing?

In the Fullness of Time

Everything happens in the fullness of time. No matter how strong the temptation to rush and push and force, things have to unfold in their own way. And it usually turns out to be for the best.

There are things about yourself you need to know and learn and discover before you are ready for the dream to come true. It is those moments of waiting, having the luxury of time to think things through, that unlock keys to magical places within.

So often, the dream comes complete with every detail ironed out, every nuance crafted, every subtlety manufactured. But reality leaves plenty of possibility unformed so that all the stuff you never imagined, but will actually enjoy more, can find its way to you.

Requirements

My emotional life is requiring the kind of attention its been denied for this entire lifetime. I have so little fluency in speaking this particular language. I can write, but to express feeling, especially in the form of feeling instead of words, is so foreign.

I am practiced at speaking the language of thoughts and ideas, of spirit and philosophy. Emotion overwhelms and confuses me, hitting too close to home to comfortably share.

This too, I suppose, is part of this new journey....

Flood of Relief

Relief floods over me, having left behind the constant humming energy of the city. I always thought I loved the never-ending movement of life there, but freedom from it is softly exciting. I can breathe all the way in and out, not bothered by the feeling that I have to be somewhere, that I have to do something, that I have to be someone.

I am just here, learning what it feels like to relax and let every part of myself open, inhaling and exhaling fully, no pressure, no stress, no requirement.