Before I met you

    Before I met you the dreams of my heart were lost many years ago. I often recall my old fantasies, usually in the dead of night when everyone else is asleep and my eyes refuse to shut with the haunting cries of my soul finally awake. They scream and mourn the death of my once alive feminine day dreams; finding true love infused with many adventures of the open road. This is where I felt most at home and even dreaming about it eased my restless soul. The road is where my heart lies, where my soul is most free. Nothing but a stretch of highway lay before me, not knowing which exit to take or where I’m going, which city I will visit next, what wilderness I will rest at for the night only to let my mind, body and soul heal with the elements. The trees, the clouds, the birds, the insects, the dirt and grass all wrapping around me as I truly become one with this Earth. This beautiful planet we take for granted only to replace it with suburban cages and society's burdens. 

I live in a beautiful home with an equally beautiful man. He has given me everything society has wanted for me and I should be more grateful. Yet the call of the wild tears me away from giving him my full heart, and I fear he doesn’t understand. I am two people, two women locked in the same body. One cooks, cleans, takes care of her husband by rubbing his tired feet and fulfills his every desire both in and outside of the bedroom. The other is lost, a wild woman at heart yearning to return to the open road and experiencing everything this world, this life has to offer. 

This can’t be it for me. There is something missing, a whole in my heart which refuses to close no matter how many times I try to lock the wild woman in her cage. She screams and scratches her way out until she is once again sitting alone in her dark corner, the black room of my mind where she patiently waits with her knees to her chest, her hair a tangled mess and streaks of dirt running rampant across her face. Her barbaric eyes darting in the darkness searching for that dream to breathe to life once again. 

I remember the days when she was happy. She would wake me up in the dead of night, grab hold of me and take me away. I would pack only what I needed and head off before the sun awoke, leaving my friends and family behind only to be with myself, to find myself once more. I was most wild when I was at the young age of seventeen, traveling around the United States in my beat up old red truck, stopping only when I needed to. I was grateful and happy. Grateful because the people I would leave behind for weeks on end understood. My mother covering my tracks, telling people, “She has a free spirit. She’ll return when she’s ready.” 

It is true that I do possess my mother’s spirit. I inherited my wildness from the deepest part of her heart, an ocean of dreams and a yearning for excitement and adventure that seems to have only grown with me. An overgrown wilderness destined to overflow with such force that is only known by mother nature herself. It explodes, threatening to break me until I succumb to it’s powerful strain. 

I became a wife at the age of twenty-two. I was lost in love with this man and I would have given up everything for him, even my will to run free. I tamed myself, telling myself it was time to grow up and become what everyone wanted me to be. My freedom days were over and now is the time to let all those childish fantasies go. I needed to help support my family, for who can make an occupation out of a drifter? Society threatened to exile me if I didn’t contribute and the house wife inside me awakened and took over. She helped the wild woman back into her cage, brushing her hair back and whispering in her ear that everything would be alright. 

But everything isn’t alright. Not anymore. The wild woman is restless and hungry, and is done being patient. She is clawing her way out of her cage despite the many attempts made by the house wife telling her, no, lying to her that everything will be okay. 

There was an epic battle between the two. The house wife’s pristine apron is now torn and thrown to the floor like forgotten trash and she is now cowering in the dark corner, the wild woman standing triumphant over her. 

I have a bag packed. I have my keys in my hand and my heart beating, my soul vibrating as I take one last look around my beautiful home. The same home the house wife has built with her own hands. I feel the wild woman try to calm her, stroking her hair back and despite their fight they still have a love for each other, a deeper love that one can only feel for oneself. They are me, and I am them. They are my children, these two women living in my head, and it’s only fair I give them both the same amount of attention. The house wife nods and closes her eyes, tired from all the years of being perfect. She falls asleep with a smile on her face despite the unknowing of what she will wake up to.  

        The wild woman smiles in return, kissing her forehead, “Rest now. Everything will be alright.” 

She is finally free.

Sincerely,

Hopeless