Posted by For most of my life I had been going in automatic. I just followed a series of steps that were laid out for me, by my family, by society, rarely by myself really. I just kept moving forward. And I thought I was happy. I was doing what I was supposed to do.
But then, I didn’t.
Life decided that the road in that direction was not my road anymore. I couldn’t see it at first, so I kept pushing. I kept fighting. But when has a wall been moved by a man’s strength?
I didn’t know what to do. I got frustrated. Not only because the wall didn’t move, but because it didn’t exist for others. They could continue in the path that was blocked for me. For years I tried, I learned, I copied, I looked for help. This wall didn’t move an inch.
If that wasn’t my path, where was I supposed to be going? I had never considered anything else. This was it. This is where I was supposed to be.
I sat down, my back against the wall. I had tried everything I could and it didn’t seem like it was going to move.
What now? I asked myself.
Then, there was this light. I did not seek it and it certainly didn’t seek me. But life was guiding me to it. I will admit, I was scared at first. Its shine I hadn’t seen before. Then there was a force, a pull. It’s not that I couldn’t resist it if I wanted to, but I didn’t. I was curious. This was new. And it felt right.
I got up. My feet started moving. As I walked the wall started to lose its importance. I didn’t feel the need to go that way anymore.
The light seemed distant for some time. I didn’t feel I was moving any closer to it, but things around me started to change. Some of them started to gray out. Others gained new colors. Some even transformed. I felt amazed at the new shapes, the new colors. I was also confused, very confused. I couldn’t understand what was happening.
Suddenly the light started moving up. I felt i had to make more of an effort to keep going. I slowed down. Each step took a moment. But even then, I couldn’t stop. I felt pain, first in my feet as they had to adapt to a new terrain. Then my legs since they had to use more strength on each step. But I never felt like stopping, not once. And I reached the top.
I took the deepest of breaths, filled my lungs with air and let it go. The road was not over.
Everything around me was different. The shapes were unrecognizable. The colors were all new. Some were deeper, others were more vibrant.
I thought I was rested enough to keep walking. I wasn’t. As I tried to take the next step, I stepped on a rock. A rather sharp rock. I lost my balance. Trying to somehow protect myself from the worst outcome, I put my hands forward and fell on my knees.
My knees hurt, my hands hurt, everything was bleeding. I rolled onto the floor and layed there. Looking up, thinking of nothing. Feeling my body and how the flow of blood suddenly felt stronger in my hands and legs. It all happened in a second, but it felt like a month.
And this was only the first fall. When I got up I noticed how the road was flat, but full of these sharp rocks all over. After some time, I could feel every inch of my skin. I thought I had left more blood on the rocks than what remained in my body.
Then the light started to get bigger, to feel closer. The pull was stronger with every step. Now, there was certainly no way back, not that I ever wanted to. As I got closer and closer I started to see through the light. I stopped right before it to look inside. It was blurry. Bright, but distorted. I thought of looking back. I seriously considered it. And I felt everything. Everything my body had been through, all the new things I had seen to get here, I felt it all at once.
I stepped in.
At first it was certainly underwhelming. It looked familiar, too familiar. I felt I had been here before. But it was different. Then I noticed it. Everyone was here, everything I knew was here, but it was all different, changed somehow, morphed. It was subtle, I had to pay attention. After everything I had seen and felt, reality now was not the same. And it hit me. It was not them that changed. I had learned to see the new colors, the new shapes. It was all the same, but more detailed.
But that was not the end, the road still continued ahead of me.
I started walking, slowly. Admiring what was around me for the first time.