"Not all who wander are lost."
Sticker on the bumper of a Subaru Outback. A Pacific Northwest cliché of which I am quite fond.
Wanderlust.
Lust.
Not all who lust wander.
They should, though.
I think of the days, the ones not long ago, when my heart and mind were congested with lust and plans and predictions and impressions. Days when I was so reliant on what others thought of me to construct my own identity that I seldom connected to the present long enough to truly enjoy whatever adventure I was on at that moment.
Still, I kept wandering. And I kept lusting. Lusting for companionship. Lusting for approval. Lusting for relationships I didn't really want. Lusting for recognition. Lusting for rescue. From myself. From the pain and anxiety that was so deeply ingrained and repressed it had become unrecognizable.
I was so fucking sick and I had no idea.
Little did I know that lust tufts and lust grit trailed behind me like a comet's tail down those winding, windy highways.
Lust cells sloughing off me as I romped mountainsides and clambered boulders.
Lust evaporating from my pores in the summer heat.
Lust swirling down the shower drain in a gym in Whitehorse after a week of camping on the dirt roads of the wild north.
Lust crumbs licked from my chin by a little dog named Pilot.
One day I broke through. Forever. Like magic, lust no longer reigned supreme. No longer dictated my level of contentment.
The journeys came alive. They were fresh. I was free. I was there. I was here.
Once upon a time I had longed for all that I wanted. The approval, the rescuing, the trust, the love, all of it lumped into some undeserved and unattainable commodity. A sack on a high shelf that only the real grownups could reach. An exclusive invitation. An inside secret that left outsiders like me to kick rocks down the road.
I would never find it, never know it, I convinced myself in tones so quiet not even I could hear.
But I did. I do. It was right here all along.
It was me.
I am what I have been looking for.
This is my entry for the #monomad challenge, held daily in the Black and White Community.
Give it a try.
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All the stuff (pictures, words, etc.) I put in this post and any of my other posts is mine (unless otherwise stated) and can't be used by anyone else unless Pilot and I say it's ok.