My Birthday Vision

This morning I had a vision.

I had been released from prison. I was finally free. I was finally free of the prison of my own making. I was out into a blank openness of field and land as far as I could see. It was kind of gray and unformed, but at the same time light. The structure behind me, the one I had left, was solid and clear, with clear borders, clear boundaries. I felt a slight pull of wanting to turn back. Prison seemed safe now, familiar. It hadn't been that bad really. I liked the rules. I liked knowing where I stood, what was expected of me. There was order and within it, a safety.

But this? This opennness, this freedom, this limitlessness, was unknown, unfamiliar. I was in unfamiliar territory . . . alone. I looked around and caught a glimpse of another structure behind me and felt a pull. This one had no barbed wire, no fence. It was a pleasant option, but it was a structure just the same.

And I caught myself in the game and saw the illusion for what it was. For there is no safety in that structure, only limitation.

So I sat with myself in the vastness of the unknown, without form, without structure, feeling lost, wanting to grab at something, anything familiar. But instead I waited. Watched and waited. And waited some more. And in my discomfort, I felt the truth . . .

I'd said I hated prison, but I'd feared freedom even more.

Happy Birthday to me.