By Kenneth Stepp
Imagining things in my mind helps me understand what turns my life has taken. I have a dear friend that gave me a visual this morning. Imagine you are in a boat. You left the island where you never really fit. You weren’t you there, and in the distance is where you want to go. It’s the island you belong on, the island you belong to. It’s your home. And so the journey begins.
Have you ever looked around, evaluated your environment and said, I don’t belong here? Being single, being alone, even being on my own. None of these are who I am. I’m here and I will survive until I’m home again. The path isn’t always easy. Heck, it seldom is. Being alone is foreign to me. It’s as if I went on vacation to a place I’d never been and got stuck there.
As I float slowly between the place I was and the place I’ll be, it strikes me how different the two islands are. Perhaps I had to get far enough from the one and close enough to the other to understand why one is home and one is not.
When I first became single, it was fun. No accountability, no real responsibilities other than to myself, and only me to judge my life. I believe a few on my home island would think that sounded pretty good. Over time, most realize it’s not home for them either.
As I look back at the place I rowed the boat away from recently, I see pain, confusion, and so many damaged people trying to figure out what to do next. Many have been there so long that they believe it’s home.
They wake up every morning, sign online, and start all over again. Singles groups, dating sites, and events for other prisoners of the island. You can’t escape what you don’t believe has you captured.
As I turn the boat towards where I belong, I see in the distance, my home. It looks more lush, more inviting, even more exciting than the other island. Perhaps being away so long made it seem that way.
Maybe it was always this beautiful but I just couldn’t see it back then. I might have even focused on the wrong things when I began rowing the boat to the other island. Who knows? I now know where home is and I want to be there again.
My mind wanders through what I remeber is there. I row slowly but methodically towards this gorgeous island. Memories flood my mind. The other island wasn’t a place where I could be me and me is all I have. In many ways, it seemed full of stage props and lost people. My faith is in my home, not the place I found myself.
The landscape is coming into view. Those who knew me back then may not know me now. Change comes when tested. Some change makes our hearts grow smaller and some, if we allow, makes our hearts grow bigger than ourselves. Some make our capacity to love grow in size that it doesn’t look like us anymore.
Tomorrow I will stand on familiar shores. I will walk on ground I’ve walked on before. This island is home, it is where acceptance abides. It’s where authentic love dwells. Today I will row till my arms cannot move. Tomorrow I will be where I know I belong forever.
We all must push the boat in the waters alone. There are far more than two islands. Some are uglier and more hurtful than others. Taking a tour through them requires allowing things to change us that we should never embrace.
Once you are done with the other islands, know that your home is only one of them. Find it, not finding it means you island hop until you’re so far from home You’ll never get back. You forget what home was like. I thank God I did not. Home will always accept me, real love lives there. Not the plastic version I have seen too often.
Tomorrow I will be home, tomorrow I will fit in again. Tomorrow I will be the man I was created to be, not the one I was becoming.
Tomorrow did not come, but I do know where my island is.
“You will remain the same, until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change.”
#comefindme
