Swimming in the Deep End

Having spent 44 years on this planet, I have learned a thing or two about love. I have learned that words are fantastic and all but in the end fairly meaningless. I have been seduced by pretty words more often than I care to admit, excusing actions that belie the most exquisite professions of love. One of my favorite songs, Teardrop by Massive Attack, begins with the following lyric "Love, love is a verb, love is a doing word." If you want to know how someone feels about you, just watch their actions...that is where you will find the truth. It is true what they say, the truth really can set you free.

You know those stories about people just chucking everything and taking off for the wildnerness, or a year of world travel, or a hike up the Pacific Crest or Appalachian trail? I crave the ability to take a real journey of that nature.  I have great envy for those folks who are financially capable of doing such things. Maybe they don't have to worry about a mortgage and student loan payments. Even though I am incapable of physically leaving on a grand adventure of self discovery, I find myself in the wilderness,  even as I sit in my beige cubicle in insurance land. Somewhere along the way I lost me. Sometime in the last couple of years I forgot who I am. I became a smaller version of myself until now when I look in the mirror I  barely recognize the person staring back.   I had been thinking I needed help finding my way back to who I am, but the realization struck me this weekend. Why should I limit myself to finding my way back to who I once ...