audacious

This is how I believe it begins for each of us……..we are audacious. Fearlessly, even recklessly bold and daring. Unrestrained by convention. Spirited and original. These are innate characteristics within us all. When exactly is it that so many of us forget this? I wonder when it was that I forgot.

I watch them through my viewfinder, these carefree young souls, and they beckon me to follow them and return to the place where self-expression is fiery and uninhibited. Where there are no limits. Where what you feel like doing, and what you are doing are one and the same. I take a few steps in their direction and can feel excitement bubbling inside me, along with a vague sensation of familiarity.

Sometimes I think, though, that the unimaginable quality of absolute freedom can be so disorienting and even frightening that it sends one backwards despite wanting to go forward. Self-induced bondage may not always be pleasant, but there exists a sort of cocooning comfort in feeling the boundaries of the walls that surround us, which whisper almost maternally, “don’t venture out into the wild, stay here where it’s safe and I will protect you.”

Maybe we don’t actually forget the audaciousness we knew when we first arrived, as much as we fear and then resist remembering.

~Cynthia