silveradept | The New Year

I dreamed at the new year.
In my dream, I dreamed and saw paths before me, and the universe told me I could choose.
Many roads laid before me. They promised Fame, or Glory, or Fortune, if I would follow them.
While they tempted, I saw a path, away from them.
Overgrown with weeds, thorny, rocky, and incomplete, this path offered Wisdom.
On that path, I walked, cursing every time I fell, stubbed, barked, or bruised.

I came to a viewpoint, and saw before me a valley filled with houses, with people.
Some I knew and wanted to stay with, some were new and wanted to get to know.
"Stay a while," they said, "and we will learn more about each other."
And we feasted and held festivals. (f-locked)

My journey, though, called me again, insistent.
"You are not finished yet." The pull of Wisdom drew me onward.
And so I passed through the places of forgetting,
where what I was fell away, stripped with each step.
Some things I fought to keep, others I let go.
By the end, though, what I was had been left behind.
Out with the old, in with the new.

But snow is only tabula rasa until the first footprints,
A canvas blank until the first strokes.
Old and new competed for space,
and I tried to build a life where
the only thing I wanted was more of what I had.

I did not build alone.
Others left suggestions, hints, mines.
While contrary to those who said must,
I built goals I thought I could do.
On the time that I choose.

I built spaces for others and me, too,
where we could share joy and triumph and support.
In my dreams, people were there, helping, singing, and making great things they could not do alone.
It was good, but it was distant, and soon I realized I was not needed there any more.
Having brought the spark, the rest was in others' hands.

Finally, I dreamed my dream,
One where I was with someone who thought in binary modes,
Who spoke in imperatives,
And whose temper flared every time I appeared annoyed.
They could love dearly, though, for those that made it past their tests.
They were also fiercely protective of those they considered worthy.
And then I remembered
that I did not dream this dream
but was awake.