Not the Road Less Traveled...

Have you ever gone to a place using the same route over and over again? Though there are many other ways you can take to get there? Though you know that other ways are much faster? Though you know that a change of sceneries will be good for you? And while you program yourself not to take this route tomorrow, you always end up getting on the same road.

It has become so automatic that you no longer think much when you drive, you just know that at this certain point you will have to steer the wheel to the left, that this is where the traffic light is and you just know when to gently hit the breaks, and this is where you will need to slow down because a hump is just a few meters away even if it is barely noticeable with its black & yellow paint fading out.. And yet you know because you have been through this road so many times. It has become so familiar it numbs you to the new things that should probably bring a taste of excitement. Then you come to a full stop and you realize you just breezed through another journey.

You end up where you expect to end up. You know that you will eventually have to switch on the engine again, and another journey begins, but no matter how much you talk yourself into taking a different route you always end up trekking the same road. You don’t mind the destination; you know that this is where you will have to go anyway. Not that the place is something pleasant, but it is the place that you know you will have to be for now. But somehow you hope that something in the journey will bring some kind of relief or even just an entertainment from what is inevitably going to welcome you when you reach your destination. So each day you make your mind to take a different route but each day you find yourself passing through the same people, slowing down in the same hump, turning left to the same corner. Then it brings you back to where you left off. It is that place where you find your life attached to completely loving and utterly wondering how this will end.

Of course you know how this will end, you believe in eternal life… and eternal love. Love will find its way beyond what is temporary and mortal. But how will it end now, in this mortal temporary life? You have tried to find answers and some of the ways you tried, you are not proud of. You have tried for years and in each year that you do, you swore to yourself that it will be the last. But you find yourself in the same path, year in and year out.

The path so familiar… you can go through it with eyes closed. Sometimes you shut your eyes tight because for a moment you just want to forget that this path leads to a place just as familiar … a place so ridiculously, shamefully and painfully familiar.

And yet there is something redeeming in all these. For in the midst of the frustration and ache it feels so good to know that you can actually love in this manner… that you can actually be capable of drowning your own tears because you need to put on a joyful countenance. And upon much self drilling you realize you really are joyful… joyful for having loved and loving still.

Simple Abundance: One quiet night, after "Brother's Karamazov" failed to put me to sleep, I grabbed my laptop and allowed myself to be lost in thoughts again. What a soothing way to end the day.