Be Free

I left for this adventure with a wide open heart, somehow instinctively knowing I would never forget it, for everything I would learn. Weeks before the trip I felt the rumble of thunder in the ache of my bones, knowing the experience would widen and shape me like a young canyon hit by a flash flood, stuck debris rocked from the foundations, ground into fine sand in moments that polished my edges and deepened new gorges before being carried away.

I was lucky in the first place to get to go on a journey like this, at this exact point in my life, with Brett. Each of us in in a very similar place in our lives, all ties and responsibilities loosed, about to embark on a long period of mostly solo travel and self-discovery. Two different people with contrasting upbringings and different educations with so many interests in common, such a similar travel philosophy, so much to discuss and vibe over. Wow, the things he’s about to do this year are so extreme, so fearless, it has filled me with so many new ideas. The things we discuss keep my mind so sharp and focused. Brett is so good for me. Even in subconscious ways I know I am learning invaluable lessons.

With his heart and mind as open as it is, it really was no surprise at all when I stepped outside after my Christmas Eve shower to find he had set up the camp stove on a picnic table and was preparing dinner for us and our now, new heavily-bearded friend, Frank. Wow, where do I begin with Frank… well within a few minutes he’d pulled out his 4-stringed Cuatro and started singing us songs from his country Venezuela. His eyes wide open, sparkling and smiling with every lyric. He sang with all his heart over a tasty shared dinner, mostly songs about love. And then he got out his harmonica and played both as the night burned on, with a few beers and hot homemade gluhwein. Frank is also set to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail in March, once just an impossible dream to take that much time off, but now a reality after loosing all his ties from a life in Miami as a stock broker. The life he lives now couldn’t be more contrasted, or any more laid back. That night we camped with him far out in the desert and have met up with him again for our stint out here in Terlingua. There is SO MUCH MORE I will share about Frank, what he means to me, but that is all to come. To cover it adequately, he needs a post all of his own.

When I first met Brett in the laundry of the Pecan Grove RV park, probably over a year ago, he with his small bundle of clothing and bedding, me with my sweet squealing kid running around me, doing 4 loads for my traveling family just a few machines down the room, we hadn’t even spoken to each other, but it was obvious we were both silently curious about each other’s lives. I sensed from him somehow that he was about ready to launch into something that would open his life up, and I felt an acute twist in my belly that never left me from that day. I don’t even know how I knew that. A few days later over a conversation I would discover his dreams to pack it all up and travel by motorbike into central America and that twist moved its way up into my mind and niggled away there ever since. He was already living in a tiny Casita in an amazing RV park right in the heart of the most vibing part of Austin, he didn’t have much to pack up from what I could see, but even though my locked in situation was more obvious from the outside, he too had so many unseen ties to loosen that took courage to let go of. To me, he seemed so much further ahead, that it would take me years and years to get to the place he’s at now, so free to be, to travel far and wide. The idea of ever being that free seemed impossible to me. But then amazingly and shockingly, my ex slipped up in an overwhelmingly unreconcilable way, and absolutely out of the blue, Bam! He was gone, taking our child with him. The only life I knew. And even though it was extremely painful for a long time, and I kicked and fought and wouldn’t believe it as really happening, believed we were meant to be together… here I am, EXACTLY where I need to be. Exactly where I am meant to be. Exactly where I WANT to be. Free. Absolutely and completely free.

I can’t describe this feeling I wake up with every morning, every single morning the past month or so, where my heart feels it is going to BURST with happiness. It floods into my limbs and warms me up into every new day, and as it fingers through my body in rays it shoots out into all the space around me, the feeling of utter freedom. Absolute abandon rushes through my head with the precision of a drug that feels so close to falling in love I can’t tell it apart, and I squeal, sometimes scream out into the desert I am so happy. Freedom to breathe, belly breathe deeply and fully, freedom to choose EVERYTHING, freedom to express myself fully and completely without shame, freedom to BE exactly who I am every minute of the day, and to grow stronger and more fully into my potential, my true character, blossoming into my truest nature. As intended.

All these years I was afraid of being alone, without someone to love and to hold me, yet this new freedom tastes and feels better than anything that has come before. It’s a rush. If I am to ever share my path with a love again, it can only be if it is better than this, to give this up. Ideally with someone who gets it, who knows what I am talking about, so that we can both still play in that elusive realm of space and freedom, languish in our own uniqueness as strong individuals. And that, is a tall order.

Yet I already know, that once I am ready, it’s there for the taking. I’m not at all concerned about waiting for the right one to come along. Just as everything that has come before was meant to be to shape my mind and open my heart the way it is now, and everything I am going through now is happening with such unbelievable precision timing, with daily bouts of uncanny luck… I know that when I am ready, he will be right there, having just arrived at that point himself.

In the mean time and for as long as it takes, I already have everything I need, because as it turns out, the only person I was missing all this time was me.

This entry was posted by } bird { on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 3:45 pm and is filed under blogalog, desireth, Food for thought, Friends, Personal, Travelog, USA, wildishheart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.