I want to BE happy. Not as in a picture on facebook with two faces, cheek to cheek, smiling into the lens. Really, how much can a frozen second tell, when life is a rapid, or a winding bush path; a tumbling up and down in the eternal search for equilibrium? My sister, you will know it, if you have it, when you wake up in the morning and your heart is not racing, and you’re not brushing your teeth absentmindedly, all the time trying to remember why you feel so, so unhappy?
I’ll tell you why. A dream – a real dream, not some sugar-induced rush of excitement – is like your strongest memories from childhood, the kind that have nothing before or after, just that one picture, crystal clear in your mind. Like the day I stood in my brother’s corner reading the graffiti scribbled on his wall; tiny little boy looking up at this vast expanse covered in quatrains and rhyming couplets. Or the afternoon I lay on his bed, warm sun shining through the double-bay windows, listening to Tracy Chapman on his walkman, and gently thumbing through a dog-eared copy of Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’.
So, now, it doesn’t matter how you bend or twist me, what kind of potion you put in my food, there will always be a restlessness in my soul. Yes. Every time I look up and see the unique patterns of sunrise or sunset, or hear the plucking of guitar strings in a dimly lit room, there is something inside me that will always say: ‘Ah! There is more to this life than all this.’ True. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, or the beautiful children we have, or the wonderful life we’ve built around steady jobs and an affordable mortgage; this insane struggle to drive up to church in the biggest car. No, it doesn’t mean that at all. But, see, I was not yet fully formed when someone said, ‘Do not use it as an excuse’. And, now, I cannot get it out of my head.
So, let me tell you; Love is not an excuse for folding in your wings. And it cannot satisfy every need in your heart. And don’t just be wary, avoid them, the people that tell you to stop listening to all the other voices in your head. Because in the uniquely cruel entrapment that relationships can – when they go wrong – turn out to be, the thing that always goes first is your faith in the reliability of your own gut feelings. So, someone tells you that your restlessness is a phase, it will pass, and you stop listening to the inner warning - it is not, it will not. So, someone tells you that, eventually, staying home to take care of the kids will fill the void that opened up when you quit your job, and they convince you to dismiss it as immature, the lingering craving for a life of your own.
Ah! There are those who will always say, ‘Look, everyone compromises. Grow up!’ And make you think that wanting more is a terribly selfish thing. But you can only really love people with the same love you regularly use towards yourself. So – be warned – those who have chained their hearts will, in return for loving you, ask you to chain yours. And those who will never chain theirs will, in return for loving you, set you free. So, don’t swoon too easily at chocolates and flowers, my friend; tomorrow, with its retribution, is much closer than you think. Yes. If you have a dream – a real dream, not some trending tweet-induced rush of excitement – leave those kisses and follow it, because the loneliness on that road is not as crushing, but the Love – ah! –is truly, truly uplifting.
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