There is a song that has been itching its way through my heart. It is a song that I haven't heard in a long time, and there are reasons that my brain is still trying to ignore it. It weasels its way through my bones and out into my fingertips.
It says, settle.
For the past four years I have been running. And it took me four years to realize I wasn't running TO anything but rather running AWAY.
There is a part of me that surrounds my soul. Less than an iron fist: more like a moist, limp handshake. A tinkling voice in my head and keeps me from realizing my whole self. It whispers late at night and only recently did I acknowledge it.
It says, You don't belong.
And that is why the open road has been such a great appeal. Because I can't belong. I can't belong to any town when I only stay a night. I can't belong to anyone if I leave all new friends within the week. And so, for awhile, I entertained this voice. I came up with excuses, and they were good ones too.
And so, a couple of months ago, when I started to think about attending college, this voice once again came out of the shadows. I was excited about school. I felt ready to sit and learn. I felt ready to feel safe and bake in my own kitchen. I felt ready to stay. Something I haven't felt since I was 15.
And then my mind began in it's usual fashion. Well, school would be ok, but I think I would get sick of it. I can't handle a year long lease. What if I get bored? I think I need to road again. College is overrated anyways. I have done fine for the past couple of years without it.
But behind all that, behind the voice that I have been hearing and listening to, came something else. At first it was just a whisper. Like a wrinkle in the sheets. Like the burn of cigarette paper. And for the first time in my life, I acknowledged it. I heard something else, and even though it hadn't quite surfaced yet, I knew it was something important.
Settle. That word is still so scary to me. For someone who has lived by her own rules for a few years, the idea of being "stuck in one place" is terrifying.
But I kept listening and eventually my soul grew stronger. It says, stay a year, and just see what happens. See what you learn by staying. Watch the trees turn orange, and then fall off, and then witness the magic of spring after winter. Bake bread in a kitchen that is all yours. Buy a cookbook and then make dinner in a house that is all yours.
Stop running and listen.
This is not to say that my adventures have been tainted. I have been wild my whole life and there is a real part of me that can only be satisfied by adventure.
I am still not ready. I still hear a voice saying that I don't belong. But this time, there is something else there. Something fighting back and saying, you don't need that.
Do you have something encasing your soul? Something that keeps you from shining like you did the moment you took your first breath.
Scared to try and find something different that running. But my heart is ready and my head just needs to catch up.
