Clandestine Confessions

I had a *former* boyfriend once tell me my urge to travel simply comes from my need to constantly be running – being unable to settle.
(Let me say though there is a difference between not wanting to settle and not wanting to be domesticated…)
He said it was driven by me simply wishing to escape – him a bit harshly judging my heart’s desire on previous decisions made by the mind when in preservation mode.
An unfair punishment but understandable…slightly.
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I was told once I go and see a few places, it will get out of my system; my lifelong dreams being reduced down to a “phase”.
And then I will come back and be ready to settle down. Be ready to conform. Be ready to match the character he created me to be in his life – the wife, homemaker, owner of a homestead, mother to five kids who will then homeschool them all.
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At one point I would have agreed to that and did; for it sounded like a good, acceptable life for someone.
And if you do not know the life you want, you will say yes to whatever fits “normalcy” – especially when your life leading up to that point has been anything but.
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See, for a majority of my life I had one task – to stay alive.
And I did not foresee that mission lasting past the age of 20.
There was no thought about what it would look like if I did; who I would be or where I would be or what I would be doing.
When I reached my 21st birthday (in a very unconventional way), I realized perhaps I need to make some plans for my life.
Coming out of an extreme identity confusion, having based my entire existence on diagnoses which were now being forcefully stripped away, I had no concept of authenticity.
Which is how I ended up continuously defaulting to a life chosen for me – a world curated from other’s expectations, desires, opinions.
I would let the person fill in the blanks of the life that awaits once I return “home” (physically and mentally).
Responding out of expectation.
Replying out of desperation to prove I am a worthy choice and capable of ordinariness.
Sometimes their input came from good intentions. Sometimes out of selfish gains.
But regardless of how, it always resulted in painful consequences.
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Because defiantly I would rebel against that life – through the destruction of my body.
“None of this can happen if I am not healthy enough to achieve it….”
(Those dots, however, not getting connected until nearly a decade deep into this cycle of behavior.)
The loudest scream of the mind that I do not feel safe.
Letting my actions do the talking for what I was too scared to verbally speak.
The master of miming.
The slow death of my body a physical representation of what was happening internally as my spirit struggled to survive in the wrong habitat – like a dolphin in a desert.
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The extent of my conforming will reveal where I am in the context of my healing.
Perhaps part of why I said nothing about my 2021 until I woke back up.
Keep all red flags covered that I was descending back into the darkness.
And rapidly so.
So although the agony was horrendous of how it all ended, had the conclusion never come, the pain would have been far worse.
For far longer.
What happened after was simply an acceleration of what would have happened in it.
The only difference being what truly perished.
It wasn’t my body.
It wasn’t my spirt.
It was the projected version of me.
And along with that, every “idea” for my future I had up until that point.
In that, I was offered the opportunity to rebuild.
Insert my three-week cross-country road trip.
The only logical choice, right? In light of what I was once told about my own self…
(Some may see that and say I am too stubborn but what many fail to realize is my stubbornness is what saves me…time and time again.)
And do you know what that adventure didn’t do?
“Get it out of my system.”
Confirming it is not some sickness needing to pass through me. It is part of my identity – wanderlust written in my DNA.
Solidifying this is the type of life I am to live.
That I am on the right track; having made all the correct, truth centered, heart-aligned decisions to get here.
Here being a world designed perfectly for me. Chosen by me. Lived for me.
It revealed who I am.
And when the heart is equipped with that wisdom, there is no turning back.
To anyone or anything or any lifestyle that does not reflect the truth of authenticity.
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I do not fit in certain people’s lives anymore nor in certain aspects of this world, but amen to that.
I do not care to be relevant, only real…