Same Path, Different Destination

Family is a funny thing.   There is an inertia that comes with the customs, culture, and expectations that feels like comfort and captivity at the same time.  Here are the people who have spent your formative years with you, have shared chicken pox, bathrooms and endless meals with you.  But how is it that when it comes to sharing dreams, we are so far apart?  How are my dreams unique from the overiding family mindset when my humanity is just as predictable as the next?  How is who I am so much different than who they are?  Of course, the nature vs. nurture debate topped off with the free-will component makes for interesting mental gymnastics. I can easily turn the thoughs in upon themselves, fruitless, empty and in the end coming up with no real answers.  But for the sake of this little entry, I will side step the "why" and just focus on my observations.

When I gave my mother that goodbye hug as we left Gulf Shores, I could see compassion and sorrow.... Just as all really good mothers express when their children leave, but when I look into her eyes, I see the path I am on as so foreign to her and to the rest.  It is as though I have found the energy to break inertia's hold and head into a new direction.

Again, I am not extolling any so-called uniqueness I possess.  I am not unique, nor is my different direction similar to those who go through outright familial alienation.  If it were, the divergence could easily be explained through personal pain and self-protectionism.  For me, there was no alienation.  My family is made up of people who would come to my aid.  They express and even show love for me, my well being and my future.  That's what is so puzzling.  How can 36 years of seemingly similar events.... the same vacations, same scalloped potatoes and ham, the same private school lead to vastly different dreams?

The answer could lie in the "seemingly" similar experiences.  I don't really look at the situation as the apple orchard where their limbs grow straight and my limbs grow crooked.   It is more like they are the orchard - similar, in neat rows all aligned and pruned; whereas I am an animal moving through the orchard; enjoying it in season then moving on to make my way.

Their dreams are composed of consistency and rooted with steadfast uncompromising values.  My dreams are comprised of adventure and far off places.  They value close proximity.  I value the freedom to be close or distant.  They want stability at the cost of happiness if needed.  I want happiness to magnify my highs and temper my lows.  To me sameness is stale and they see variety as unnecessary or even reckless.

I love these people an my critical lens shines on the issue to shed light on the anatomy of my dreams, not to look down on their path.  I have lived it, I know how comforting the orchard can be.  They are good people raising amazing kids.  In some ways I admire them.  In fact for those 36 years, I wanted to be them, but no matter how long I sat in the orchard, I had not roots.  My aspirations didn't hold me there, just fear, just my conformity.  When I breathed deep, put my fears aside, stood to my feet, my legs had a rhythm they needed to meter out; an internal momentum of their own that moved me on towards my true destination.