I’m sad.  Not depressed in a clinical sense.  I’ve been there before.  I know what that feels like.  This isn’t it.  I’m just...unhappy. I have things to be happy about.  I am in no way destitute, but I am still unhappy with life in general.  I haven’t reached the pinnacle, though in many ways I’m much closer than most realize. 

As I look around at the landscape I realize this wasn’t the mountain I wanted to climb.  It was so hard to tell down there at the bottom which one I had started on, and the crossroads were all blind instinct.  Now, after all that work, I’m not where I wanted go or even on that path.  There is nothing wrong with where I ended up.  In fact some seem to be impressed by it.  How do I explain that yes, there is some notoriety here, but I wanted the notoriety over there instead.  It’s like shooting the hat off a person when you were aiming for the apple.  Yeah it was a cool shot, but not what you wanted.

Some people find themselves in this situation, and happily surprised, just keep going.  There are those that the question of which mountain they are on never mattered as long as they had something to reach for.  There are those that any success acted as personal empowerment and they gladly set on that mountain path headless of the rocks.  In fact those persons seem to be able to leap over chasms and move boulders.  We look at them as shining examples.  I am not in competition with anyone so I am happy for their success.

I was not meant for mountain climbing

I’m not made for that kind of life.  Success to me is far less tangible.  All those plateaus and peaks and crags and valleys are fun and interesting, but not meant for me.  I’ve always rejected the rat race.  I reject the idea that I have to reach for anything at all. I challenge the need to have a traditional job, or parent like our society says, or live my life by any standard.  I fully resent money.  I resent the need to earn by someone else’s standard in order just to live.  Why can’t I barter for food?  Why can’t I make my own shelter?  Why must I live life in this way?  I can fool myself, by finding something semi interesting to do for a time, into thinking that I can live by these means.  I excel most of them time when I set my mind to it.  I’ve even made a name for myself in certain circles, for what it’s worth.  In the end, though, I always end up feeling dissatisfied.

I have a deep need to live life unfettered.  I hate being tied down by anything.  Some ties I choose, like my children and lovers, but my lovers know never to hold me back, and my children will one day fly on their own.  While I love animals of all kinds I don’t own many pets, other than cats, because I can’t just up and go when I want to.  Cats can handle a night or two without you as long as there’s ample food and water.  My dream is to live out of a mobile home so I can pick up and go whenever.  Once we almost did just that with plans on homeschooling the kids, but we didn’t get the financing in the end.

​I’m tired of trying.  I concede the need for gainful employment and income so we don’t starve, but I’m going to do it my way.  The truth is while my body *does* make working from home a need, I’d choose it anyway.  I’m going to learn what I want to learn.  I’m going to write what I want to write.  I’m going to do my weird crafts.  I’m going to do the things that nourish my soul even if that means I’m a large woman belly dancing in the living room.  If it doesn’t nourish me, it’s gone.  There will be some changes.  Some will not agree with my choices and some may even be hurt by them.  I’m done trying to make my soul fit in a box.  I’m done making the mountain top my only goal.  I don’t feel good labelling myself or closing myself into a space.  Some really need that to feel safe and to grow.  There’s nothing wrong with it.  Just not for me.  I am expansive.  I am limitless.  I am more than the surface you see.

I am adrift in the All That Is, and I go where I am willed.
​
I have forgotten who I am
I have forgotten
My rebellion
To a society
That pulls me down
With inky tendrils
of self loathing
A society that claims
I am not enough
 
I have forgotten
About creation
At my finger tips
Worlds building
Growing
Thriving
Twining in my mind’s eye
Taking form and shape
By pen and line
By words and thoughts
 
I have forgotten
About movement
And magick
Energy spindled
‘Round practiced hands
The call of ancestors
Guiding
Noble colors
Of light
 
I have forgotten
About the fight
To honor
All that makes me
Me
My thoughts
My beliefs
My truths
Lost to suspicion
That has existed
Will continue to exist
No matter how
I choose to live my life
 
I have forgotten
What it is
To be a warrior
In a world
That expounds
All about me is wrong
I have forgotten
The dragon
Deep inside
 
My blade is sharpened
My senses honed
My will has been forged
And I stand tall
 
No more
NO MORE!
I scream into the abyss
 
I remember who I am!