Most times I take the shortcut home. It’s fast and efficient. Navigating my way home is easy this way because I don’t have to think about it. I don’t need a map because it’s already traced in my brain. Landmarks help me figure out which path to take, and I never once look at what’s in front of me. I skate through effortlessly.
Sometimes I take the long road home. It has bumps and road blocks. It scares me more than the shortcut. Sometimes I have to take a few uneasy breaths to center myself. I look everywhere, I notice everything, I scrutinize and criticize what is in front of me. I remember what my mother has told me, how I should make safe decisions. I also remember what life has told me — that the road less traveled is the one that makes all the difference.
Everyday I have the two choices in front of me. Shortcut, or the long road home.
The shortcut is getting up and undressing in the dark. I skip the mirror and head out the door. I put my headphones in and I walk. I feel nothing at all.
The long road is turning on the light that washes my skin out. It’s undressing in the mirror. It takes all of my strength to really look. Thick thighs accompany my raw image in the mirror. I pull my hair back and look again. Bags under my eyes. Creases on my forehead. Cracks in my smile. I dress slowly. I feel the curves in my hips, the scars that accompany are permanent. I walk out my door. I feel naked.
The shortcut is pretending all day. The shortcut home to my body is pretending it was never there in the first place. The shortcut is being in another world, in another time, in another life. The shortcut is placing my heart outside my home.
I forget that it’s okay to go back home, that yes, once it was invaded, but I have refurnished. And that biology says every seven years my walls completely renew. And that I have cut what was poisoning my roots, threatening to fatally soak my veins.
I forget that the long road is walking in the rain, stepping in every puddle along the way. I forget that it is allowing myself to slide down a wall and ache and scream because life is unfair. I forget that it is allowing myself to be alive. I forget that the hardest thing about being alive is being alive. I forget that by taking the long way home, I am loving myself. I forget that, that makes all the difference.
Next time, choose the long road home.
Let it hurt. Let it rip through your home, shaking and rattling every piece inside. Then let it go. Get lost on your own axis, leave gravity, find a new way home. Do not stay where you are unhappy. Leave the numb. Feel the silk in your soul again. Let it drown you, until you are no longer in the shallows, but in the depths, meeting the crashing waves.
Cry and laugh and scream until you’re sure you’ve reached far beyond the stars. You’re hard and soft and bright and dark and you, you are so you.
You are enough. You are so enough. You are here to stay, to breathe the air that settles deep inside your lungs. Your body is your home. My body is my home.
I am who I am. And how lucky I am, to be.
