Bandages

What does it mean to be bandaged? Does it mean one is concealing something? Hurting? Or healing? Maybe a bandage is worn simply to keep things out while healing takes place. To prevent infection and influence from the outside world. Why am I bandaged? I am healing. Rediscovering a healthier and less infected version of myself. I was infected by the influence of another, subjected for too long to control. Control brought about by someone else and their deep-seeded insecurity, and kept involved by the love I felt for them. I fought myself constantly knowing that there was more in this world, or less, but wanting to discover completely the full range of opportunity. I couldn't have it, the freedom that I desired, and him at the same time. So it died, I stopped fighting, and I stopped loving. I didn't want him, but for a little while it seemed easier to stay and learn not to want myself than it did to go ahead and find myself. In hindsight I know it was unsustainable, but at the time it seemed like an option, not a good one, but an option.

Opportunity is in my blood, and change is a constant for me. Am I working towards something? Absolutely. Will I always be working towards something? Absolutely. Why can't I stop? Stopping is the slightly more evil cousin of settling. I have wasted time settling, and occupying a routine that I assumed was expected of me by society. Society told me don't leave. I knew for years that leaving was exactly what I needed to do. Do not misunderstand. My bandages aren't covering wounds of loss, but I have lost, a marriage, a lifestyle, and a familiar place. But all that familiarity brought about was the illusion of comfort. It was time to make an exchange... or quite simply a change. Now I seek constant change. Will I stop? No. Will I settle? Only temporarily. Will I be searching? Always. What purpose do my bandages serve? They are there to hold the pieces of myself together while I try to figure out the connections between them.

The bandages keep me close to myself, warm and peaceful. Peace is gained through the knowledge that I am on a path that I have the power to steer myself or to let my future come to me. Choices are one of the most beautiful things in life. Sometimes the fog is settled so low to the ground it is hard for me to see clearly. Other times it is clear what I have to do, but regardless of the state of the world around me, or of my own consciousness I keep travelling. Today I may prefer to go towards something rather than be passive and let it come to me. Tomorrow I may embrace a more passive approach opting to see what the world decides to send to me. I will take any road, throughout my life I have taken a few, and by the time I am done I will have taken many, but in reality it is only one. I have one path and that is the path that I take, it is my own, I am on my own, not alone, but independent. Some would say I only have one life, so I had better figure it out. Today, I say I have this life to figure it out. As the bandage slowly unravels I am not exposed, or even renewed. This is not a cocoon, I am still myself, but I am revealed.