Tonight, I stepped out of my house and onto the pavement. My tired feet pounding the same stretch of road they touched time and time again a lifetime ago. Yet there was something strange, different, something almost off balance about it. As my eyes focused ahead of me, my mind drifted to memories long past. This road knows me. This road saw it all, felt it all, experienced it all with me. I bore my pain here, I bore my hopes here. In the pursuit of getting somewhere, of being someone, I abandoned this solid stretch of road and the girl who once ran it.
How do we find a way back to ourselves? After all that has happened, after all that we have done, after all that has been done to us, how do we get back to the road? That road, the road we veered off of, the road we left behind, the road we are so desperately searching for.
If I am speaking authentically then I guess I would have to say I never really was one to stay on the trail. Growing up I forged my own path independently and fiercely, striving to do more, be more, experience more. I took pride in that. I took joy in pushing myself outside of the comfort zone, trying new things and daring to live my life authentic to who I am. Yet even the striver, the achiever, the doer, the mover, the builder, the creator, the planner, the traveler can loose their own way.
There is a dream I dream. A dream, a memory, so vivid I awake not being able to discern my own reality. I stand in a forest. Dense. Dark. Trees taller than any I have ever seen. A chill echoes through me, fear making it hard to breathe. The long, shimmering, white, winding path is the only light emitting from the darkness of the surrounding forest. The towering trees sway violently in the wind. I stand still unmoved by the turbulence. My eyes glance to the path ahead. It is only then that I am able to see the outline of someone ahead of me. There is a brilliant glow emitting from behind them. With fervent and calculated steps, I approach. Their features hazy, the face, the body, the arm, the hand outstretched for mine. They seem familiar. I have seen them before, a distant memory long faded. They take my trembling hand in their firm grasp, allowing our fingers to intertwine. The touch sends a sudden jolt of energy through my entire body. Gone is the fear that clouds my heart. In its place a gentle sense of hope. At that moment the world around us shifts. The towering forest falls away, yet the winding, white path remains. Together we turn, walking hand in hand into the unknown. I awake breathless and longing.
How do we find our way back? I am not a dream analyst, nor am I one to share them in general. I only know what I think, what I feel, what I believe. There is a part of me that has to believe I am not the only one who dreams this dream. The landscape may be different, the details altered, but the truth remains. We reach out in faith hoping that someone is reaching back towards us. We step trusting that we are walking towards something, someone. We trust because we believe fear yields before hope. We long because we know there is a fulfilled promise yet to be revealed. Is the figure I am walking towards a person I shall one day meet, is it Jesus? Maybe just maybe it is neither, maybe just maybe it is me.
How do we find a way back to ourselves? I don't know the answer to that. The optimist in me says it's about trusting ourselves, trusting some plan, having faith in timing and in purpose. That there is a season for everything. A season to be lost and a season to be found again. The believer in me understands it is in the being lost that we can even be found.
The realist in me says we may never find a way back. I may never find a way back to that girl who ran this road a time or two ago. She may never come back. I may never be her again. Maybe just maybe...I am not supposed to be. Maybe all I can do is remember her, to smile when I run the road again, to cherish those memories, and to understand just how fragile the fabric of our lives can be.
How do we find our way back? How do we find our way back to a good place, a safe place, a happy place? How do we find a way back to ourselves?
Maybe in the end it's not about getting back but moving forward.
Maybe all we can do is take a few hard necessary fearless steps into the unknown.
-Authentically Me
