trapped



photo by poweron, flickr


We went to Durham this weekend. As much as I love Durham (our previous home), I worry that trips there may be bad for my health. My last trip to Durham precipitated a horrendous bout of homesickness. This trip didn't make me feel so much homesick as trapped. It's not really Durham's fault - I was already falling into an inner cage before the trip. Durham just solidified the bars...for a moment.

For weeks now I have been laying awake (lying awake? that's one grammar rule I never got down) at night feeling a mild sense of suffocation and fear. Not about life as it IS, but about life as it COULD BE. I have been feeling trapped in this place...this home in Roanoke. Not because I want to go anywhere else, but because I can't. Screwy, right? Yes, I am an emotional mess.

I realize the ridiculousness in a lot of ways. I have no desire to go anywhere else at the moment. I have repeatedly stated that I never want to move again because the last moving process was so awful. I like my home and my adopted city. I enjoy being near my in-laws. I know some wonderful people here.

But still I have been feeling trapped and regretting that we took on a mortgage at this time. If only we'd rented! Because what if another place would be better for my children? What if another place would offer better job opportunities? What if another place would be less lonely? What if another place would feel more like home? What if...What if...What if...?

I have been telling myself that this trapped-ness is God/dess's way of making me stay put. Her way of saying, "Invest yourself in this place without always looking for another." Her way of saying, "You wanted your children to have a place-tied home, so now live it!" Her way of saying, "THIS, this is the place for you, even when it's imperfect and confusing and hard. THIS is home."

And I sort of believe it. Maybe. Or maybe this is just what I tell myself when the suffocation is too much. I'm not really sure.

But yesterday smacked me in the face with my ridiculousness.

Yesterday I spent the day at Western State Mental Hospital (previously known as Western State Lunatic Asylum) for a fieldwork rotation. Sitting in a therapy group with a man who stated vehemently that if he ever got out of Western State, he never wanted to see another wall again and would spend his days under the stars, I suddenly realized: I am not trapped. I am free. So very free.

I am free to choose where to live. I am free to travel wherever I wish. I am free to go to the grocery store and cook whatever food I want. I am free to spend my days with my family, to call up a friend, to use my mind in whatever way I choose. I am free to pursue my sense of self and my ever-changing view of purpose.

I am not free to do whatever I want without consideration of consequences or the effect it will have on others, but I have much more freedom than most. I am not trapped. I have some boundaries, but they are wide. And maybe, just maybe, those boundaries will help me to notice the bright life I have in this place right here, right now. Maybe I will learn to plant myself, to settle, to be.

"Home is where the heart is," they say. May my heart be here.

PS. I loved Western State. It is a lunatic asylum no more. It is not perfect, but it's a good place. If I had the ability to teleport myself (it's about an hour and a half from here), I might even consider working there. But I will plant myself here instead ;).