I Think You Could Understand

I think you could understand this if I told you. If I opened up my heart at the seams another time and let you see inside.

I think you could understand this, even if you’ve never lived this moment before.

The child in me – the dreamer who would run around the yard playing with his sidekick best friend dog imagining the rivers to be crossed and the mountains to be climbed – he already knows. But the grownup in me – the one who has seen things and experienced things that are for other stories – he is still learning.

He’s learning to let go.

Let go of things that are no longer for him. Let go of things that can no longer harm him.

And he’s always had a hard time letting go of those things because part of him is afraid – the grownup part – afraid that despite how much he knows it isn’t true…that he might not find something like that again. But the child knows. The child knows that this is just one piece of the adventure, a pieces that took 27 years to unfold.

My god we’ve finally reached the top of that mountain we started at all those years ago. Who would’ve thought.

I think you could understand this feeling of being in something you didn’t really think ever would happen. There’s some shock to it. There’s excitement coupled with a feeling of partially not even knowing what to do with yourself.

Now what?

That’s been a question that has been going through my mind quite often lately. Most of that question has been answered by sitting in it all. This is not a situation where I get to try to see everything a place has to offer in 2-3 days and then move to the next spot – frantically moving back and forth calling it a vacation. No, it’s not like that at all.

It’s me finally trying to catch my bearings in a dream that is fluid and changing by the moment. Yes, I can hear the calling to settle into everything…but there’s still an aspect of shifting tides to it all. And what do I chalk all of this up to?

Life being life.

A while ago, I could have told you what I saw ahead for quite some time.

But now, that vision has changed. It has shifted as well and as I sit down to write out what I can see the pen falls flat on the paper. I see, for the first time in a long time, nothing. It’s blank. It’s empty. If I had seen that a long time ago…I would have freaked out.

However somewhere deep in the back of my mind I remembered something that made an impression on me all those years back and brought itself forward throughout this evening.

From nothing, you can create anything. 

And this is where I have been lately. From all of this, this completely blank slate with the silence that accompanies it – allowing me to hear myself finally think for once – I can make absolutely anything. Truly, I can let go of all of the old things without feeling the need to run from anything…but just letting the wind take them off my hand…and create whatever I can think of.

And that, has been the story of these past 2.5 weeks. A delightful paralysis of living in the moment. So in the moment in fact, that I’ve disregarded any thought of the future…and even more interesting…is that the past didn’t even feel like it happened.

It’s that new.

It’s that life-changing.

Free.

All I have to do is pick the pen up again, and from that, everything will be born.

From nothing, everything.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project