ESSAY / ELLEN GIBSON

You see, the desire is to leave. To leave, in a sense, everything: electronics, the pile of unneeded clothing, and the “necessities” that aren’t even necessary. The longing is to leave behind the material that is not truly a part of life. The longing is also to part with the places, the people, and the feelings that are no longer needed to live a happy life.

We feel as if we are chained to where we are. We feel as if we are prisoners who can see the light of freedom and dream that one day we will be out walking in it. But, in our heads, we know that it will never be. Our heart is yearning for it, but our mind rationalizes. It scopes out and finds everything that is wrong with the dream. “Nope. Too expensive,” it says. “You know you can’t leave behind such and such. What if this, or this, or heaven forbid, THAT goes wrong. What will you do then?“ The mind tries to rationalize fear. The fear of the unknown. And for some strange reason, we let it. We let the fear take over and control our lives. And while we are living in this dread of what may happen, the heart is telling us to screw it all and just take a chance. For who knows what will happen.

Why do we not grasp the dream? Why do we fear it so much? Why do we let the unknown control us? The thing we don’t realize, is that we are the ones in control of our future. We are the ones that pave the paths. Life, destiny, or whatever you want to call it, is not something that is independent. We are life. We are destiny. We choose who we want to be, where we want to go, and what we want to do. Too often we hold on to the comfort of what we have and we are afraid of ever taking that step to make a change.

These are the exact things I desire to leave behind. Yes, I want less of the material aspects in my life. I want to become simple in the way I choose to live. I don’t want 50 outfits. I want 10 that I love and will be satisfied with. I don’t want a smart phone so I can constantly be connected to everyone, everywhere, at any given time. I don’t want the world at my technological fingertips. I want to actually feel the earth with my hands. I want to sit on a cliff, see the beauty of nature, and be content and joyful with gazing at a sunrise. I want the soul connection that comes with the feeling of my lover’s skin. I want the happiness that comes with driving with the windows down. I want the freedom of dropping everything and starting a new adventure.

Life should be a constant never-ending adventure. It should be what we want it to be. Life does not have to be the crippling ball and chain for which there is no key. We do not have to be enslaved to our work or to the responsibilities which we actually don’t even need to have. Half of what we think we have to be responsible for is some made up thing that we could live perfectly fine without. We just need to realize that there is indeed a key to that ball and chain. We can search and search for it but will never find it until we let go of the fear. And when you have released that fear, you will come to realize the most important thing.

You are the key.