Chase

It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is.
Peter Beagle, The Last Unicorn

One of my most frequently repeating dreams is about encountering a tsunami: I see a slowly rising enormous wave, which I am struggling to escape but it sure gets me at some point. I've read one of the interpretations of the dream as dealing with fear of life. Hence this constant feeling of a never-ending chase: I run from hopelessness and despair, depression and apathy, disappointment and surrender. But when I am hit I am hit. I can’t pretend that there’s an easy fix, or “it’s all in my head”, or say bravely “shame on me for feeling this way!” It’s there, it’s been building up over time inside on the very deepest level; sometimes it takes an unexpected swift emotion to cause a stir, to move your inner planes so that the wave can no longer be stored within and it comes crashing out. Then you stop running and let it take over; but once it retreats the chase is resumed.

It’s not this constant running that bothers me so much, nor is the blow from the occasional despair that catches up with me and darkens my days. I’m mostly scared that one day I will forget where I am running to or from and accept the unacceptable. I will conform and persuade myself that it’s the best way and in this submission I will definitively lose myself. It often takes just one exception that you make, stepping on your principles just once and then the next exception follows, and the one after it. And before you know it your life is build upon exceptions even though you solemnly promise to go back to the old ways, to the truth that matters when it is time. And for a while you will know what that truth is, you will repeat it like mantra but without living it in real life it becomes blurry, till it’s gone. You don’t remember what it was. And then you don’t even remember that it WAS. Comfort, emptiness and longing for something that has no name are your daily drugs till someone wakes you up, reminds you of the lost road. If they ever will.

So I keep running, looking back with fear but also looking forward with hope. I disagree, I protest, I get defeated but get back on my feet in no time. As much as it hurts, I choose pain over forgetfulness, challenge over comfort. I may lose, and lose, and lose again, but as long as I remember my true face, I will always be the winner in this race of life.