A certain me

           Independence is a heady thing. Like that first taste of vodka, it is a rush of feeling:  the strange tang in your mouth,  fire blazing to your belly, slowing, settling into a pleasant glow all over.  I find in me a bottomless pit, craving that exquisite rush. 

           It took me a long time to leave home... I remember when I was rearing to go, to leave and never look back. It did not happen though - not then. Slowly, the urge to leave died down and I settled into that comfortable routine of life. It was not an unpleasant life, no. In a way, it was a time for learning  about those familiar faces whose lives were intertwined with mine -- family, friends, teachers, neighbors...to gradually see them without the distorting myopia of childhood.  I wondered at these curious creatures that inhabited my life -- these courageous beings, familiar, but not quite.

       When it was finally time to leave, I thithered, fidgeted, vacillated trying to find the will to leave. Leave I did - told  myself 'adventures are not bad'; and it certainly has been one. It felt awkward at first - this new skin I was trying on; and lonely, strange and scary. Silently, the new skin has somehow melded in with the old and it feels more completely like 'me'. I fit into it and it suits me well.

        I love the people I am with. I love the place I am at. I hate my boss (that unbearable chauvinist!).  I love and hate, I dread, rage and roar with laughter, I dream and not work for them - all of it feels like me, and I feel free to be all that. This place, this time in my life is about knowing 'me'.   And  I find that "25  is a bottomless pit - nothing I consume weighs me down. I have so much more room in me that I used to..."( via Linz)