I started my journey with defiant confidence. A sense of endless possibilities. A young mind, ready to learn what ever would come it’s way. Determined and without doubt that what I was looking for could be done and I would do it.
What I had not counted on, was that I wasn’t free to go on this journey alone – and what that would mean. That it would be years for me to reach what I thought of as my goal. And that by the time I got there, I would have doubted myself and others many times. That I would have felt like I failed many times. That I would have grown unsure if I was aiming at the right goal at all, that I even have had to abandon it, lost on overgrown tracks and trails, for a journey to go on.
I have now reached part of what I aimed for when I started out – but I am far from who I was then. I don’t quite know who I grew into and where that person wants to go from here. Still weary from the journey, much harder, longer, lonelier than I could have imagined and wanted to admit.
It becomes more and more clear how I dragged my companions and myself through mud and thorns. Claiming what I was trying to do was just. And while it was at times, I wasn’t treating my companions the way I wanted them to treat the world. I was proud, demanding, dismissive of their hardship and ungrateful of their company, never having wanted it in the first place.
However, this task is not a one man’s job and I would have never come this far alone. We journeyed together because we need each other and can’t do without – and I should take it to heart for the miles to come.
I just wish someone could have helped me understand sooner, helped us understand sooner. Or even better, stopped us from having to go along these and twisted roads without a guide.
For in the dark, one might lose themselves and take a long time to gather again.
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