Avalanche

Who doesn’t want to enter gates to worlds that are unfamiliar, unreachable, or unknown? What is not appealing about getting lost in a wonderland of no limits, to live vicariously through the characters in a well-written story, and find enjoyment in the company of people that came from the imagination of individuals who live half their lives in alternate universes? Books, movies, songs, photographs, or art in any form do that. They transport you somewhere you aren’t, couldn’t, and wouldn’t; that’s why they’re so fascinating. 

To be anywhere but here is a common human desire. There is a restlessness that inflicts us at certain points in our lives and though we try to tamp it down by chastising ourselves into contentment, the ache persists. From the moment I read Alice’s encounters with the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen when I was 5 or 6, a form of reality aversion has gripped me. I found Mondays on terra firma dull, my wardrobe stuffed with normal things and not with lions or witches, my friends not half as interesting as Nancy, Ned, Bess, and George, and my story not as exciting as Frodo’s. 

There have been times when I wished real life was more amazing than any author could ever dream of penning. I longed for places I haven’t been and experiences I haven’t lived through. I knew there was more to be had and I craved it. Adulthood and finding God has done little to cure this affliction. Not to say that I lived a sad existence because I had joy unspeakable despite the push and pull of the tides in my mind. It is a paradox.

And then, everything changed.

The past 8 years saw me getting the “more” that I asked for. The world is all of a sudden my oyster. As though I snapped my fingers and poof! I was doing what I was supposed to do, living a life I wanted. And even though, deep down I knew there’s still more and discontent visits me  every so often, I was in a happy-with-the-status quo bubble. 

That is, until a week ago. 

I woke up one day with a severe restlessness that I’m all too familiar with creeping up on me. So on the drive to work, I said a casual prayer, “What’s next?” And the answer was as clear as day. My world shook! It was as if an avalanche hit me; as though the question was begging to be asked. lt felt like receiving an initial revelation and a confirmation at the same time. As though, somehow, I knew it all along; like my heart knew it but my brain was just slow to pick it up. Almost akin to an unrecalled dream that refuses to surface from your subconscious, lingers at the outer edges of memory, and is now slowly becoming clear. There is no easy way to describe it but that it took my breath away. And even though I feel the need to test what I heard, my heart is still and my soul at peace. There are things that you just know that you know that you know. And it changes your world. 

Reality may not be as poetic as the books I read, but sometimes they could be better.

Overwhelming.