A Walk Worthwhile

For a moment, the way the apple cider steam curled from my cinnamon stick reminded me of something I'd seen once. Some movie. And the wet heavy feeling in my chest darkened a shade or two. I'd probably seen it in my formative years. Smoke stacks and coal mines and kids my age with dreams of touching the sky. They don't make them like that anymore. Heavy-like and slow. I decided I didn't want the cider after all.

But the door to the bakery was heavier than I expected and I bruised my shoulder running into it. I had to straighten my headphones and that bothered me. But the ballad-on-repeat pounded on and that made up for it. A little bit at least. Something gone steady in a wash of change. Steady again and again until every waking moment vibrated with it. A song of the mood. An IV drip I wasn't ready to relinquish from repeat.

So I started to walk.

Didn't you?

16 years later and I'm still walking. That's what this is about. That one day you started doing what you'd do for the foreseeable. That day you turned into yourself. I started off and started staring at my feet and started wondering why on earth I am still here. I started writing. I got tired so I started drinking coffee. I started worrying about my phone. I started thinking about trees too much. I started associating imaginary emotions to them. I started collecting all these habits and tactics and... just kept walking.

It didn't get better for a long time. That heavy feeling. That memory. It sort of perpetuated. Held on.

But somewhere around year 10 I realized I'd never decided whether to let it go or not. I got so busy walking I never actually addressed where I started. And when I held that memory out before myself I started to realize a bit about myself that I was missing. I realized that all those years I'd been walking around in circles looking everywhere but at the mass I orbited.

I couldn't escape that.

So I decided one day to stop believing I really knew what made me happy and offered something new. A person. A new type of person. Someone who offered a hand and pulled me off trail and off to somewhere else. And then the walk got easier. And harder. But mostly just new. And I'll tell you - it makes the walk worthwhile.

Don't be afraid of taking the hands offered to you if the hand offering isn't like you. If you're too careful you might just miss the adventure entirely.