Down the Beaten Path

As a child, we all have our own little fantasy on how our future into adulthood will turn out. We will never stop dancing in the rain. Barefoot and fearless will always burn in our heart's desire. Nobody will ever dim that part of us! We will be damn sure to not sacrifice our passions and happiness for the sake of anyone. We will not become lost on the never changing cycle of the mundane destined to crash and burn with unhappiness just like our parents did, right? But, then we do get older. Our passion for voicing the fire in our veins eventually becomes mute through every trauma experienced along the way. Then before you know it, you're in your twenties and suddenly you have stopped slaying dragons while dodging explosions in your hallway on the way to your nightly shower. There's no more magic peppering your ceiling while you lay awake waiting to be transported into the alternate crime fighting universe of your dreams. You fear dancing in the rain because the storms bring lightning. It's at this point that we stop fighting to live and start fighting to survive. Fear has now engulfed the magic of what could be. Snuffing out the very essence of life. The impending doom of being forced to live the same exact day over and over again further being forced down into the black abyss our younger selves swore we would never go.

If we are lucky then throughout life we will catch a glimpse or snippet of what once was, and for some, that snippet is enough to reignite the fire within our souls. Magic reimagined for our older selves to remember our dreams and passion, and it's at this point where we get out of survival mode, and confidently hold a place to passionately survive a life worth living.

The little dragon slayor becomes a soldier and paleontologist. The princess who ruled her blanket fort becomes the CEO of a million dollar beauty company. The animal whisperer becomes a zoologist. The explorer becomes the greatest story teller of all time. The little girl who played house with her baby dolls becomes the best mother to her children.

What happens to the others? The forgotten souls of the dark that have become comfortable in settling in their mediocre existence wrapped in sorrow? Tell me? Where do they go to rest their heads? Is it pitch black inside and blanketed by the feeling of complete numb? Nobody knows because such an existence is usually a path walked alone. This person could be surrounded by the blinding lights of joy and support, but after spending so long in the dark, they do not recognize genuine light, and nor would they ask to share someone else's even if just for a little while. No, they could never become more of a burden then they already feel they are. Especially not to anyone they love so they will sit back and envy everyone living with their magic while praying to find it again soon.

The saddest part about everything is that there is a very high chance of never being able to distinguish between the ones who walk with magic and the ones who don't, because they have learned to make props and fake the magic for the sake of comforting us from their darkness, but what the ones in darkness don't realize is that most of us in the light would share it in a heartbeat.