We Must Go Through It

As spirits, we come into this world alone, and at the end of this lifetime, we will leave it and move onto the next phase, alone. We spend all the days in between surrounded by people, and it is human nature to seek, and to need connection to others. From an early age, we learn how to behave and who we should be by observing the people in our lives. The journey through a lifetime is influenced and in many ways shaped by our relationships to others, by their expectations of us and by the expectations we impose upon ourselves.

As children, we can’t wait for the freedom that comes with age - the freedom to drive, to stay up late, to make money so we can buy things, to move out and be our own boss, to go where we want, when we want. As we get older, we give up some of those freedoms, for our career, to become a partner and, for many, a parent. Responsibility replaces the freedom we didn’t appreciate when we had it, because we were too young to understand its gift, and because it’s human nature to always be looking toward the things we don’t have. To not exist in our moments as they happen.

At Thirty-Three

Today my child asked me to play and, when I told him I can’t, I’m tired, he said, “You’re always tired.” This from the mouth of a three-year-old. My head is in fog, filled with lists of things to do and pressured by guilt at never being able to do enough. Never being able to do it all. I am not good enough at anything because there is always too much. Not a good enough partner. Not a good enough parent. Not a good enough employee. Always pulled in too many directions. It’s heavy. I can’t see where I’m going. My eyes are glazed, blinded. I’m not here. I’m not here.

I dream of a dark, shadowed forest. Enclosed by the night, my eyes are open wide. I am awake. I can see. I am alone but I am not afraid. The absolute stillness of the forest settles around me and the weight of my life and its responsibilities is lifted. I duck down, lean my head forward as I reach up and out, and then… one last pull downward as gravity tries and fails to hold me… and I am airborne. Gliding instinctively through the trees, tilting this way and that as I make my way through branches that grab at me, and miss… I am ascending, lifting until I find myself above the trees, soaring in open sky, a blanket of stars stretching to infinity. I breathe deeply, eyes forward, ears alert to any possible intrusions. But I am alone here. I am blissfully alone. I glide for minutes, or hours, I can’t say, as time has no meaning in this place. Nothing here but the stars, the sky, the night, the breeze, and for the first time in years, I feel like… me. I am here.

I awake with a dim recollection of flying, but already the details are flitting away, though I am left with a sense of feeling just a little lighter, somehow.

At Thirty-Eight

My friends fear turning forty as it signals the end of another decade. I say bring it on. Somehow, a new start sounds like a good thing. A new chance to find myself again, to reinvent myself and take back some of who I used to be. Or better yet, become someone new. Maybe even to figure out who I am outside of who I feel I’m supposed to be, for others. But something is happening, a new obstacle presenting itself. My body speaks to me but I don’t want to listen. To listen is to have to give up things that bring pleasure, to change habits, routines, a whole lifestyle. I resist. My body is no longer the young, resilient vessel it was. I cannot eat or drink whatever I want, cannot abstain from physical activity, saying I’m too busy. I am forced to add these things to my list of responsibilities, a list that continues to grow as I do. My head and my moments are full of shadows. I am tired. I ache. I am not here. I am not here.

When I open my eyes, I am already in flight, the night like a velvet blanket around me, and every star that glitters in its depths feels like a warm hello. I fly low, gliding on currents of air, feeling it caress my face and flow over my body. It takes some of my worries, much of the heaviness, and all of the aches and pains, with it, and I leave them behind me to fall as they may. The forest just below is dark and full of shifting shadows, and it’s close, so close. But I am up here, I am alone in the silence of the night, and it is enough. It is enough.

At Forty-Seven

I am awake, aware. My eyes are open. I am learning to be present in my moments, to pull my heart away from the things I wish I’d done better, or differently, or just… things I wish I’d done, in the past. I am learning to look toward the future, but to not live there. I live here, now, most of the time. Responsibility still weighs heavy on my shoulders, and I am still trying to figure out how to balance it with Freedom. I believe I can have both. I take moments to sit in the silence, to sit alone with myself… to reflect and connect with the light that is within me. To understand my purpose, the meaning of all of this. Of life. The more I understand, the less I understand. It’s so much bigger, so far outside of the scope of what we can truly perceive with our human senses. I am seeking a deeper understanding, one that exists only in the silence, inside of me… perhaps only in dreams.

I am standing next to a gate at the edge of a field, and beyond the gate there is a path that dips down, to a forest that is dark and vast and full of shadows. This forest is one I have never seen, its trees even in the night are shapes that are unfamiliar to me. Beyond the first few steps of the path leading in, I can see nothing. I am alone and I am afraid. One step in there will take me to places I have never been, and I know I will never be the same. There will be no going back.

A soft hoot sounds at my elbow and I look down to my right. A barn owl, her face a gentle heart lit by shining black eyes, sits on the fence like a ghost, her bone-white feathers almost aglow in the night.

“Can we not fly over, as we did all those times before?” I ask, a tremble in my voice, a film of tears in my eyes.

She hoots again and gives a soft shake of her head, the gesture kind and yet somehow reproachful. You know the answer to that, she seems to say.

I look back at the forest, and my heart is racing, my hands sweating. I know I must go through it.

“I’m afraid,” I whisper softly. In life, I am surrounded by people who love me. And yet, somehow, I know in my heart that this is a journey that I alone can take. “How do I do this alone,” I choke, my hands balling into fists at my sides.

Through my tears, I see a blur of white and then the soft weight of her settles onto my shoulder. My heart pauses, as my breath catches, and then I understand. As she nestles into the dip of my neck, the tension starts to ease out of my body.

Eyes forward, she seems to say. One step at a time. Breathe.

Without thought, I find myself whispering, the words drifting out of a memory lost in time,

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…

I square my shoulders, take in one long, deep breath… pause and hold… and then let it out on a soft, trailing sigh. I start walking slowly down the hill, and take my first few steps into the dark. Her weight on my shoulder and the brush of her down against my cheek comfort me.

She hoots softly and I hear her voice inside of me as clear as the stars in the sky: I am with you. I am with you.