out

I feel like an inmate who gets out of prison tomorrow. Some part of my brain had started to think I was trapped in this claustrophobic trip forever.  But it keeps coming back to me, unexpected, here on a gear-grinding bus and there on the grungy, filthy street:  I got another life out there!  One where I'm free to move.  I've got a truck.  And music, and books, and more than these few changes of worn-out clothes.  Friends who care.  Who live open-eyed, awake in heart and conscience, caring for the Earth. Who work with creativity and humor and subversive resourcefulness.  No sheep, these friends. Who don't make me labor and exhaust myself to have a simple conversation. Who know I'm articulate, who know where my heart's at, and who don't judge me by appearances or by some unfair stereotype they got here with on their own, here in beautiful but exhausting Mexico, before I ever came along.  I've got more freedom than many of these sleepwalkers all around me have ever dreamed of in all their lives. I've got work, community, ideas, possibilities, places to go, places to stay, no dependents, no judgments, few obligations, no outer-imposed belief systems weighing me down. What in the world am I possibly gonna do with all this freedom?

Gonna hit the ground running, for one thing. Gonna laugh myself silly with gratitude, for another.