Far away for me is expression with the volume down, and I fear the last bars left until I am struck mute.
But it's not like other feelings. Far away is not sad; it doesn't render remorse nor cause heavy drinking; and yet it pulls me aside to question what is missing, and how far is there left to go. Far away isn't happy either; it isn't comforting nor something to strive for; and yet it is inspiring and motivates me to go further.
Far away, unlike other emotions, isn't a shade or hue that life paints across the canvas of our days with every coincidence and happenstance. I feel like it's the realization that my actions have left me in-between.
If I were to draw all the new friends I have in my life as circles, they'd mostly be exclusive of each other. My friends each separately know the side of me that yearns for adventure in winding streets or forest paths, that hungers for much-delayed movies and helpings of cheese, or that part of me that won't get married anytime soon, and that side of me that writes. They see facets but never the whole, and far away is the distance between the intervening spaces.
So I am far away, somewhere between the place I have left, and the place that is left to be found. I am exactly were I need to be, but not exactly where I would like to stay. It's a personal journey, but it doesn't feel lonely. I may be travelling still, but I find stillness in this one thought: I am not lost, I am searching.
Photo credit: Iceberg Gaps by Mark J. Carter
