As the milling crowds surround you, you walk alone; breathing in the energies, the chatter, the laughter and the swirl of fast, dancing life around you.

Why does your pace seem different? Like you have slowed down, while the others are racing. You seem unable to take another step, almost frozen in your attempt to move. You sit at a cafe amidst a group, watching life around you, detached, far away and yet not really far away. Your eyes take in everything dully, and yet the life around you does not speak to you. You feel like a stranger, like an alien from another planet. You feel like a stranger to yourself.

Someone is reaching out to you. You realize it is someone you loved. You are startled out of your blankness. When did that become past tense? You realize that it was at that very moment. You have ceased to love, not because there was anything wrong with the other, but because you feel stripped of all emotion.

The word love feels silly, overdressed and meaningless.You retract within yourself coldly, gathering your remaining wits amidst the blankness. You are only partly aware of what the other is saying. Partly aware of what you are answering. Partly aware that you are walking away from love.You know and feel you cannot act your part in the drama of life anymore.You would give anything to be understood. Give anything for someone to treat you like a little child, to lift the heavy sense of loneliness and detachment and to bless you with the belief in life's drama again.

You walk. You walk until you have lost all sense of direction, purpose and destination. A little child holds your hand. And, for a short while, you feel a sense of returning purpose and sanity. You feel overwhelmed by a deep sense of vulnerability in the trusting pressure of a little hand. And, then the hopeless futility of the promise of life and the inevitable tragedy of human existence takes over again. And, you feel a dull anger that one day that child would be you.

As you walk on, your legs ache, until you reach a point where you lose all sense of awareness except the mechanical act of your legs lifting automatically and taking the next weary step. You are scared to stop. You finally do stop. Tired. Worn out.You have shrugged off all the ones who had something to offer you. You have shrugged off all love you have. You have walked far to get to the road to freedom. Free from what? Free to be what?

You are alone. Unconnected. Lonely.

And, you take in a deep breath. And, you cry. No one is watching you. Your sobs rack your being. You cry for things you can name and things you have no idea about. You cry for all things past, present and future. You cry for yourself and the others. The ones you left behind in your head and the ones you longed to meet. The weight of being you until that very point. For all the lives led and not led. And then, slowly, ever so slowly, your tears dry up. And, your sobs cease.

You breathe again. And, a deep sense of peace descends onto you. In the absence of an audience, you realize that the drama has ended. And, that something new has begun. You realize a feeling of oneness with self and a sensing of something much larger. You know that the heaviness has lifted. You struggle to find words to explain what you are feeling. And, you abandon that attempt because words seem unnecessary. Joy and compassion flows in you, and for the first time in your life, you realize you are flowing with true love for your own self without judgement. And yet, the awareness of what one would term self seems different. It is no longer a narrow word strongly connected with a notion of I. This energy feels freer, easier and does not seem bound by definitions.

You dance alone in joy in the middle of nowhere in freedom, flowing with a profound sense of grace and gratitude. You have finally come home to yourself.

And, you start the long walk back in companionable silence only to find that you have barely taken a step before the swirl of fast, dancing life surrounds you.

You realize in awe that you are the dance and have always been.

SS - 1/8/2016