Nervous Silence

Silence, the still quiet of the night as the city sleeps, yet through the open window one can still hear the sounds of car horns, subway rails rolling, planes flying, and people talking.  It's 3 AM on this Saturday morning and sleep evades me yet again.  Thoughts of what the future holds bounce inside my mind while I try to keep them contained and quiet.  There is an excitement, an almost nervousness, about my arrival in Washington DC, which I am unsure of.  Thoughts of the past have been awakened recently, allowing a further review of who I was then.  Looking back has allowed greater focus of the future, for the past is what has brought me to this present moment of being.

Hardly recognizing the person from those days long ago, yet fully acknowledging the presence of that person within the person I have become.  Life lessons have taught many things over the years, all providing growth, a discovery of many new beliefs and thoughts about the Universe, who I am as I relate and am connected to everything around me, and a realization of how I have not allowed deep emotional connections for over 16 years.  The personal, self-imposed exile, I have been locked away within has kept me from feeling the pain.  Yet now there is the re-living of the various pains from the past.  It is time to grow past what was, embrace it as part of who I am, and to move forward.

It's the moving forward that will allow the self to regain something of value that was tossed aside so long ago.  It's time for the prison bars of self-doubt, self-loathing, and fear to be taken down, allowing the freedom to become something more, to experience the joys of deep personal connections.  Over the last few months I've realized just how "I" focused I have become, which doesn't really translate well into true concern for others.  Some time ago, I did an exercise in eliminating the words "I", "me", and "my" from my vocabulary for the purose of learning to listen to others.  That exercise altered my perceptions, however, the focus wasn't well kept.  Now it is time to open myself, to truly be concerned about others, and to let go of me.

What the future holds is unknown, yet from this point forward I shall embrace the past, learn from the life lessons, and come into the full awareness of being.