The Common Tone

To my past,

I write this with hands rough from your edges and gentle from your love. Thank you for what you have done. There are days when I wonder what I’ve become, or on which path you have sent me stumbling. But I know, deep down, that this is right, and all is well. I owe you this letter before I follow my new path. I can see the footprints of those gone before, yet its destination is still a mystery. It is a path, back from which no word may come, made more mysterious by those footprints etched on the edge. Your protection, I’m afraid, is more hindrance than help here. It is in parting that I write this letter, and ask that you let your grip on me loose. It is in love, humility and thanks that I ask for your blessing on the road ahead. Although I have outgrown your childish shields, it is your teachings and my memories that now become clearer. I will take on this new path the people you introduced me to, those special friends will always occupy a corner of my heart. I will take those experiences you offered me. I will carry the ones I took to fulfillment and the missed opportunities in my actions. Those mentors you gave me to teach me about life, they will dwell in my thoughts about the world. My family will live in me, my body my mind and my soul is my reconstruction of the family I have, and have had. It is this family both close and extended that will be my light on the dark path ahead. That energy that abounds inside of all of us, that binds us, that makes us family. It is time I recognize that light and let it out of the shield you have built.

I am you, you created me and I will not forget. But the umbilical cord is not long enough, nor strong enough for the road ahead. So I say so long, and rest in peace. You live on in me and I live on in you.

From here on in, it is me doing the living, not you.