Decisions

I sat outside on the balcony,

full of the knowledge that...

this experience was deepening my soul.

Adding a sophistication that would

change me.

My story was becoming richer,

more unexpected,

more satisfying to hear.

I looked out at the coastline,

awaiting the evening's festivities,

with a profound contentment.

Accomplishment was achieved,

wonders still awaited;

neither impatient for the next,

nor melancholy for what had passed.

                        ...

I stepped off the plane,

my heartbeat filled to the brim with thrill,

with the knowing,

that again, I have strayed off the path,

into the yellow wood,

and dared what others shrink back from.

The cities change: the names, the streets,

the coffee shops and grocery stores,

the friend groups and circumstantials,

but I remain.

I flow from place to place,

uninhibited by the fear and weakness,

that shackles so many.

                        ...

I gaze around my life;

the trappings of my world travels,

and I wonder at the growing pages.

The paintings, the poems,

the dinners and firelight circles...

I wonder at this improbable connection.

Who has wandered this Earth,

through the Aurora and the Sonora?

Who has left brother, and sister, 

and father, and mother, and friend?

Who has traversed the Bavarian,

the Thames, the Annecy, the Dolomite?

Who has studied her Smile, 

and felt the silence around the Oculus?

                     ...   

I sip my coffee, 

contented with a new space,

gliding through the introductions,

and revealing only that which I please.

Sometimes,

I wonder what would've been.

How typical my story might be,

if I gave it away all those years ago.

Instead, 

my vision spans continents,

and castles, and coastlines, and mountaintops,

forests...deserts...jungles...volcanoes. 

I was never sorry about my decisions,

nor doubted them...

I was only sorry...

that I had to make them.