Born to Run

Once again, I've been neglectful of this project... and I think it is not because I'm busy, or because I'm uninspired.  I think there is actually a little fear.

The thing about exploring the meaning of Home, about searching to find your own rootedness is that you will inevitably stir up some stuff that you've avoided or ignored altogether.  In reading all your contributions (and thank you!), I found myself remembering feelings and heartaches that I'd put to rest long ago.  Nothing extravagant or dramatic.  Simple heartaches.  We've all had them.  They are actually quite beautiful within the arc of a life, but not less difficult to deal with at times.

I've come to know this little part of myself that is contradictory to the rest of my nature, that is unexpected, and that cries out at very unexpected times:  there is a small but mighty part of me that has the instinct to run.  Flee.  Simply leave, before I can be the one left behind.

In shifting seasons of my life it rears up most powerful.  Times when I am transitioning into new understandings of myself, of the people around me, of the work I want to do- in these seasons I get an undeniable urge to run.  And it shocks me still, though I've experienced it many times (and acted on it a few).  As a person who craves people and families and communities... a person who craves Homes... I have this strange but powerful urge to escape from these things, just when the getting could be good.

I believe it is a self-preservation thing.  We start out life with our hands spread wide, and our eyes big toward the sky and the world before us.  Everything is amazing... nothing could be bad.  We fling our arms wide to catch all the treasures and moments and beauty that we expect will rain down on us, but we inevitably catch a little hurt and heartache along the way.  So over time we start to bring our arms in closer and closer until we create a shield in front of ourselves, protecting ourselves from the pains... but also blotting out the beauty.  The urge that rises up in me to flee is the same as pulling my arms abruptly in to shield myself from the prospective hurt.  I'll leave first, before I am left.  Before I am hurt.  Before things go bad.  Run now, while the memories are still good.

I don't want to be that person, though.  I want to be the girl who spends her entire life wide-eyed and wondering.  I want to walk through my days with my arms stretched out before me, palms up to the sky ready to catch whatever rains down.  I don't want to run every time something starts to get good, just because I'm afraid that they won't get better.  I want to be the person that expects that the good will get better.  That yes, the bad will come... but I can make it through.  That life could possibly be easier if I shielded myself... but how much would I miss?  If I only get to do this once, I want to do it right, and fully.

So in this journey Home, I suppose there is an element of being willing to commit to digging in.  Committing to building your Home.  Committing to root.

The grandest, most impressive and influencing trees do not spread wide because they revolt from the ground.  Rather, the deeper their roots, the farther their reach.




A video to sum up these thoughts: