The Mood

I get up from my chair in the kitchen and walk to the door leading down to the travel platform. I open the door and and take a deep breath in. I can smell the sweet smell of flowers and cut grass. I walk down the stairs to the heavy wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. I pull it open with a heave and step onto the cool platform. I haven't been here for  awhile. I look around and wonder why. I realize in that moment I haven't spoken to my soul in a long time. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind of my thoughts and fears. I want answers to questions I haven't thought of, I want to know, until the moment arrives and then I don't. I wistfully dream of a million different variations of my future, and don't know where to grasp onto.I want to know that life has more than what I am currently taking and creating. What do I want? and what does that look like? So many ways to reach the same....destination? Feeling? Apex? A collection of experiences? What am I dreaming? What am I reaching for? What is missing? Do I really want to travel with the kids everywhere? I want them to feel secure...and see the world...I want to not be tied to a corporation...Business? I want to work from home? Alone? everyday? So I can go crazy in my own head?

I could feel the wind blowing and leaves were floating trough the air around me... all of them have different images of the thoughts in my head. I look up and see more leaves falling and swirling around me. I stand there and let the thoughts fall around me. The leaves start to gather on the ground, with gusts of wind picking them back up again....I reach out my hand to see if I can catch any leaves...as if I want to control at least one of my thoughts. The leaves evade my grasp as they sway through the wind.

I start to think about everything I have now...the blessings, the feelings, the smiles, the laughter, the cuddles, the friendships, the family, the loneliness, the tiredness, the pressure, the regret, the fear, the searching, the wishing, the planning, the freedom, the constraint, the silence......

The leaves continue to fall with all of these recognizable images in them as they mix and mingle with the other leaves. I can feel the emotions of each thought as they fall to the ground. I lean over and pick up some of the leaves off the ground...some of them still have images, some have words carved in them. Expectations, fear, guilt. I pick up a few of the expectation leaves. I can't even see the images that were on them when they fell from my mind. I crumble the leaves as they turn to dust and fall to the ground. I bend over and pick up a few more leaves with words on them. Fear, guilt, regret. I cradle them in my hands before I crumble them into dust in my palms.

The leaves with happy current moments, and images of people, stayed close to my feet where they fell. I looked further around me...there were piles of leaves everywhere. I picked up a hand full of leaves and looked at the images that were on them. People I didn't recognize, places  I  haven't been. The futures emotions are not very different from the ones I feel now. The same words are carved in the future leaves, as they are in the current leaves.  I pick up another handful of leaves as the other pile drops from my hands and drifts to the floor. I look closely at the ones in my hands. I find one that has an image of me on it. I stare at the leaf for a few moments and let the leaf slip out of my hand and fall gracefully to the floor. I turn and walk away from everything and head back through the heavy door and up the stairs.

Freedom

I drop my keys on the desk. This is it, this moment has been a long time coming.

The last six months I have been working tirelessly on my websites. Everything feels so synchronistic. I checked my bank account this morning before I left work. I made more money last month than the previous six months combined. When I get to work my boss calls me into her office. The paper is sitting there. I already know that she is trying to discipline me for something unnecessary. She is rattling on about something, I'm not listening. My mind is calculating the things I will lose today. My heart is calculating what I will gain today. I had imagined I would do both jobs for a few years. I would create a secure, stable income from the websites first. Now I am standing here on the precipice of change, the brink of freedom.
I think about all of the tasks I am supposed to complete today. I think about the way people are going to react about my decision. I think about the people that are going to judge me, and the people that are going to feel like I am leaving them behind. I start to feel a twinge of doubt. My mind starts to convince me to pick the keys back up again.
I look at my boss, she has stopped talking, and is staring at me, waiting for me to respond to a question I did not hear. "I don't know" I answer, unsure if that will answer sufficiently. I start to feel panicked. I cant decide which way to go. My mind is screaming at me to make it work, to take my time, to plan it out. My heart is whispering at me to take the leap.
 I think to myself "jeez universe, help me out here". My phone dings. I turn the phone over and read the text. A call off for PM, another ding before I can even look away. A full time person just quit. My mind starts to wander to the schedule. Who is going to take of these people tonight? Who is going to find coverage? The phone dings again. Another call off. "OK universe, I get the message, no more call offs" I think to myself.
I look back at my boss, she is still rattling on about some report and how she is sure she told me about it.
I take a deep breath. I look at my phone. I delete the texts, I clear the call history, and I lock the phone. I set it on the table next to my keys.
She hands me the write up, mumbling the usual "please read and sign". I take it from her, and turn the paper over. I scribble my official statement noting that I quit, as of today. I know I am forfeiting my PTO. I don't care anymore. I turn to my boss, and hand her the paper.
"Good luck, you had two staff members call off tonight and two are quitting as of right now."
She stares at the paper as I turn and walk out the door.
As I step out into the sunshine, I finally realize what freedom felt like.

Dig Deeper

"Dig Deeper" She said.

"I don't know how much further I can go" I replied, as I lifted another shovel full of dirt out of a gaping hole in the ground. 

It was dark out, it was the darkest out. There was no moon, a heavy layer of clouds blocking the light of the stars, and we were hundreds of miles away from civilization. 

We had hiked almost an hour into the hills, from the car. We had started hiking right as the light of day was turning gray.

"Dig deeper" She said again. "Just keep digging. you will know when you find it".

I look up at her, though I cant see anything, I can feel the dirt on my face, I am sweating, even through the cold night air. She is standing at the edge of the gaping hole, I am assuming, peering down at me.

"I don't even know what I am looking for, how can I know, if I don't know? This is crazy!" 

We had been out here for what felt like hours. The night air had turned from the warm of evening to the cold of night. Through the sweat I could feel the chill in my bones.

"You just have to keep digging, we wont leave until you find it." She said insistently.

"This is ridiculous, I am frickin tired of digging." I mumble under my breath.

Shovel, after shovel I continue to dig.

"There is nothing down here" I say exasperatedly

" I don't even know what I'm looking for!"

"Just keep going, keep digging deeper" she said calmly from the comfort of the surface above me.

THUMP. 

The shovel hit something hard, and hollow.

"Do you have me out here digging up a grave?!" I yell to her. "I am NOT digging up a dead body!"

"It is not a dead body" she laughs. "Just dig around it until you can get it out."

I  shovel on the sides until I don't feel the shovel hit anything, I finally get the box cleared of the dirt. I lift it up, it is heavy, with dirt stuck to it. I hoist it above my head as high as I can. "Here, grab it" I grunt as dirt falls in my face. I feel the box lift off my hands. I brush off my face and climb the dirt wall out of the hole.

It feels so dark out, I can hardly see my hand in front of my face.

"How are we going to make it back to the car tonight, with no light?" I ask.

"We don't, it is almost morning, and we can stay here until then."

I shiver at the thought of sitting out here all night, but I am too tired to fight with her, let alone even respond. I curl up on the cold ground and stare into the darkness.

I must have dozed off, laying on the cold hard ground, because I was awoken by the sun shining on my face.

I sit up, and sit in front of the box. It is wooden, with a lid that looks nailed down. I try to pull the lid off, and to my surprise it came off with ease. I set the lid down and peer inside the box. it is full of pictures and figurines. I look at each of the pictures. I stop at one. It is not a picture but maybe a postcard. It says the word resentment on it in bold letters. I set it down, and continue to sort through the items. A lot of them have pictures of someone that looks like me, but is not me. They are all in different eras, ages, and locations. I lay them out so I can see all of them. There are other postcards too, they say Love, Hate, Permission, and Dread. 

I pull the figurines out of the box next. They look like little angels with different emotions. One looks sad, one is dancing, One is thinking, one is sleeping, one crying, one is angry, one is happy. I stand them up in between the cards.

I look over my shoulder, "Sister, what the hell does all of this mean? What is this? How did you know we would find something?"

"Great Grandma told me." She said quietly, as she stood behind me, looking at the spread of items on the ground. "She said they were trinkets, treasures, and tribulations." 

I look into the wooden box again, at the bottom are some other small trinket looking items and they were sitting on some drawings. I reach in to pull the first trinket out. It is HEAVY. Like Thor's Hammer heavy. I stand up to get leverage and using both hands I pull this small thumb size trinket out of the box. I look at it, it is a silver bird cage. I drop it on the ground with a thump. I reach in and grab the next item. It is also small and immensely heavy. I pull it out and look at it. I cant tell at first what it is. It is a cleaver. I drop that one on the ground. I look in, three more to go. The next one looks like a blade of grass. The next one is a picture frame, and the last one was a heart. 

I pull out the drawings. They are changing images as I look at them. there are three papers with changing images on them. They slowly morph from one image to the next. I set them down next to the photographs.

"Sister, what are we supposed to do with all of this?" I ask.

"Well,  I guess we  are ready to head home. Pack up the box, it is coming with us." 

The Dreaded Ease of Discomfort

I sat down in front of the TV. Unsolved Mysteries was about to start. Every week Robert Stack would tell the world about another woman who was found dead in the woods, another child dragged from the park into a car, never to be seen again.
"This is it." I thought.
"I'm going to help find these killers."

"I am going to be a Criminal Profiler for the FBI." I announced to no one in particular.

I read every book I could find about serial killers, criminal profiling, I studied psychology, I bought a gun, I went on Ride-ALongs, I dated a guy whose uncle was a serial killer (and in prison). I trained, I ran, I did push-ups, sit-ups, I learned how to fight, how to break a neck, an arm, whatever I needed to.

I was ready.

Next step college. My gateway to freedom, my path to my dream. My downfall.

The first class I took, I failed. Doubt crept in like a thick fog, and settled in to stay.

I took another class, I passed. I took a few more. Time marched on faster than my expectations.

The weight of life pushed down on me. My gateway to freedom started to look like a dark abyss out in front of me.

I looked over and Fear was standing next to me.
"How long have you been standing there?" I asked.
"Long enough" Fear replied.

I am not meant to be an FBI agent, I am not smart enough, fast enough, educated enough. I dont have the right tools, right mindset, right degree.

Fear stood there with a boombox on his shoulder and played this on repeat. It echoed through the fog of doubt, and amplified the dark abyss.

I stood at the crossroads of FBI and anything else. My heart hurt, my soul ached. I took a step towards anything else. I picked up my backpack of Dread. It was almost to heavy to bear. I looked down at my feet. One slow step at a time. Five hundred steps, a thousand.

As I walked through life, life continued to happen. I look behind me as I walk. Fear is next to me, the fog of doubt surrounds me if I pause for too long, the backpack of Dread is heavy. Around my ankles I now have tied to me Regret and Guilt. I dont even remember when they latched on to me. But we have been walking together for many, many miles now.

I am tired. I tell Fear to go away. I yell at him.  I try to run. Dread is too heavy. I try to put the backpack down, but when I stop moving, the fog of Doubt envelopes me. I cant see. All I can hear is Fears boombox on repeat. I start walking again. The comfort of the rhythm. Guilt and Regret dragging along. Fears sounds start to sound normal. The fog becomes comforting like a blanket, and the backpack makes me feel grounded.

Time continues to march on. My expectations lay shattered like glass all around me. I just keep walking.