For a long time,
I lived a lie.
I thought I had to do everything,
Be everything for everybody else.
That I had to become someone I wasn't yet,
So I could earn my place in the world.
I thought other people's remarks were a command I had to obey,
Because they knew better.
Because they knew who I was supposed to be.
How I was supposed to behave.
And the entire time I thought,
I can't.
I can't be this person they expect me to be.
I will never get there.
So I hid.
I hid behind silence.
I hid behind personality theories.
Behind diagnosis.
Looking for justifications for my inability to be that which I couldn't be.
I tried to make a flag with the torn fabrics of the explanations I found for myself.
Life happened to me and it made me like this.
I am these traits.
I am the sum of these experiences.
I waved this flag as an excuse.
As an apology.
As a third class ticket to life.
I will never be great,
I thought.
But perhaps I can still live quietly,
Unnoticed,
Under the surface others walk on.
And I held my breath.
And I kept on living a semblance of life.
Quietly,
Unnoticed,
Below the surface.
I was wrong to believe others knew any better.
I was wrong to believe I had to become anything at all.
I was wrong to believe labels could define me.
I was wrong to believe life happens to us and our past experiences determine what the rest of our lives look like.
I was wrong to believe only some get to live on the surface and the rest of us belong underneath.
But now I close my eyes and look at the world from the sky and see how much we've created and how much importance we've given to our own creations.
We've sprinkled this planet with made-up meanings,
Borders,
Definitions,
Limitations.
Our eyes see what they expect to find,
Projecting belief systems that colour everything our gaze falls upon,
Starting with ourselves.
But up here,
With my eyes closed and my heart open,
I get to brush a different reality with my fingertips.
I feel a tingling sensation that lets me know there is an invisible force all around us.
And when I'm very still,
I feel that force within me too.
Up here,
The projections crumble.
There's no me and you.
There's only us.
My body dissolves and I melt with the air,
With a blade of grass,
With the flapping wings of a bird flying by.
My hands are the roots keeping trees in the ground.
My back becomes a stream.
My eyes are every planet that spins in the dark.
My heart is your heart.
Up here,
All made-up creations look like a game we once decided to play and ended up taking too seriously.
My name is just a noise I make.
There is no past,
No future.
There is only this,
Only this.
Something that cannot be changed or obtained because it just is.
And it is pure.
And it is ever-present.
And it is enough.
I am enough.
And so are you.
When I calm down,
I often forget these truths.
I get lost in the noise,
In the rules of the game,
In the meanings we create.
And I start becoming small,
Small again as the definitions and limitations begin to pin me down.
I've learned a secret to handle those times.
You see,
There are reminders planted all around us,
Ready to bring us back home.
They're hidden in plain sight,
In the smile of a stranger,
In the innocent yet wise words of a child,
In a song or a work of art,
In the hands of someone who gives for the sake of giving,
In a sudden surge of strength awakening within you.
You'll recognize these reminders because in a split second the world will seem a little brighter.
Expect to find them.
Believe they are there.
Neglect and add them all,
One by one,
As proof of the beauty of the universe.
As proof that everything that brings us down can be transcended.
As proof that we are one with the web of life.
I deserve to be here,
And so do you.
