Tales and Journeys

This post tells about the need to have a safe home to come home to, the insecurity of not having one, and what you need to make one.

I’m not content right now. I’ve got this vague feeling like something needs fixing, something that’s gone wrong somewhere but that nobody’s noticed. It’s like the world used to be run properly, but then we all started neglecting it to stress over less important matters instead, and now we’ve all forgotten how it was and how it used to be run. I feel I should do something, I feel I should take control and make things work again, show people that the happiness of the past can return not only in our minds.

But things seem so different now, so much more complicated. Complication has tainted my mind, and ignorance has become a habit. I can see it happening and I work against it, but I cannot help but be carried away by the huge current. I knew once that there were refuges on top of the water, many of them. Refuges built on happiness, joy and friendship, built by those who share it, who know it and who can give it. Those refuges still exist, in new forms, for others, but I shy away from them. I do not feel at home in them. I visit sometimes and it inspires me greatly, for a while, but overall I’ve become an outsider.

I constantly try to build my own refuges. But they are mere shadows of those I remember. Though I wish to build them for others as well, they are made by and for myself, and I alone support them. And that’s not how it works at all.

However, I’m well aware that I’m not the only outsider. And you don’t need to be an outsider either to be troubled by this. The problem is independence. Before, I used to have little to no control over my own life. My family and my friends’ families controlled everything that happened in my life. They’d lived long lives already and they’d built several refuges between them; a network of houses on the water. In due time, we will also have built such for the next generation, and they will, hopefully, live happily in this safe haven. But what about those of us, here, now, who’ve left the nest of our childhood?

We’re in the cold of the river, swimming to find our own path. But we also need to find together. We need those refuges, and we can’t build them alone. Many of us aren’t good at building, or at cooperating, but letting that hinder you will never lead you to happiness. This is not the time to lay still in the water. Good friends are the most important thing of all when you’ve become independent.

Lastly, who says you can’t return home from time to time? We’re humans, and not birds. Leaving the nest does not mean you never go back, not at all. Of course, not all of us have the luxury of a safe home, but for those of us who do, it’s a great source of inspiration.