i'd forgotten what it was like to be free.

but someone came along at just the right moment and showed me how again.

that knot-oh that knot. it's gone.

the relief is so tangible, i readily breathe a sigh of relief.

it goes beyond wedding planning, car fixing, hospitalization, moving, new job, moving, americorps, moving, working 2 jobs, dunkin donuts, moving, not knowing what i'm doing with my life, interning, moving, counseling, moving, moving--all the way back to college. (man, have i moved a lot.) all the way back to that girl who lived free.

how sweet it was. free to float and flit and explore. to look at the dates on tombstones or wander around, late at night, musing out loud. to dwell in simplicity together. there were people to do it with me. it's not that i've stopped between college and now, being who i am. it's that i stopped trusting others to do it with me. it's that i couldn't find them. no, that's not even true.

it's that i didn't stay put in one place long enough to trust them. and life got in the way. bills. job searching. apartment hunting. when the big things are uncertain, you stop taking risks in the little things. that's what i've learned over the last few years.

you stop hanging out randomly with people b.c you're too exhausted from the instability of your job, your life, your lack of place in the world.

you can't hop on a plane and fly to another part of world on a whim because anxiety might keep you from getting on the flight. let alone the money...

large, loud, overwhelming places shut you down instead of energize you because you can't find enough space from minute to minute to breathe.

simplicity gets lost in the complexity of having to live life alone and grown up, responsible.

but there must be a way to keep it. a way to feel it in my soul, even as my mind and body is confined. a way to live and love simplicity and be free, to maintain childlike abandonment, amongst the drudgery of the american dream. to not worry about tomorrow, but live for today. i think i've been brainwashed into responsibility.

there's just this tension inside of me, the many sides of my personality. the body that needs to be structured, the mind that needs to be challenged, the heart that needs to be loved, the soul that needs to be free, and they continually conflict with each other. my body needs regular sleep and rest but my heart and soul keep me out late at night. my soul wants to be free of the worries of every day life but my body needs me to work a regular job to house and feed myself. my mind loves to be challenged with tasks and responsibilities for it is easily bored but those tasks and responsibilities often monopolize my life.

i like me but sometimes i don't know what to do with me.