From The Ashes

She posed the question of whether we have to give up our dreams to live in the real world, whether it is possible to have a plan and follow it, whether it is foolish to believe that we really can have it all.

And it made me stop and consider my own life. So many times I have felt as though I was settling, as though each point I reached was simply a safe place to sit and rest a while, waiting for my real life to begin, waiting for my dreams to find me. I have worked hard and a lot, but have only had two real jobs. Because after some time, they begin to feel easy and safe and mine. They begin to feel comfortable.

I'm often jealous of those people who spend their lives bouncing from one profession to another, one country to another, one identity to another. From the outside it feels like they are living, like they are experiencing life and all it has to offer. They are alive. They don't settle for comfort, but rather, stretch their bravery to the limit. They are afraid of nothing. They don't know what their tomorrow will bring and are okay with that, embrace it, in fact, for its delicious potential.

That's what I thought my life would look like. That's what I thought I would be. But instead, I've become much more of a settler. My coworkers and I have come to consider ourselves "lifers" at our job. I'm beginning to explore the idea of a more permanent residence with one of them, somewhere close, somewhere we can consider home. I'm beginning to get comfortable with this life.

And like most decisions, it both thrills and terrifies me. I fear I'll become a woman wishing she had done things differently, wishing she was living while her life passed her by. I can't help but think about what I'm giving up by choosing this permanence. I can't help but think that staying still means letting go of any chance of becoming that fearless wanderer I'd envisioned myself being. I can't help but think this is the small death of a dream.

I've surrounded myself in my comfortable life, created a cocoon of silence and fear. I've placed myself within this cold, hard shell hoping to both change and stay exactly the same forever. I do not feel like a butterfly. I feel like a scared caterpillar hiding away from the world. Possibility offers itself up to me and I politely decline its invitation and settle into the life I know.

I wanted to be a person who spread joy, but I fear I've become someone who makes connections through shared sadness. I wanted to be alive, but fear I am only living. And in times I've wanted to die, I've discovered some small part of me already has, some idealistic hope I once had that became smothered within the crevices of disappointment.

And yet--there is new hope. There is the small lingering faith that among the ashes of my unfulfilled longing there is still a burning ember or two that refuses to go out, that will ignite the growing forest of my ambition and spread like wildfire through the trees of my desire. There is a part of me that will always believe in that kind splendor, that rebirth of the spirit. There is a part of me that will always believe in the power of dreaming.

And in light of that, where I am or what I'm doing seems irrelevant. Being comfortable is not the end of me. Choosing a life does not mean surrender. Standing still does not mean that I am stuck. It only means that I'm giving those few embers time to light, to ignite, to rage.

And I will burn with life.