Becoming

“Maybe the goal in life is not to become anything…rather to deconstruct all that we have been told to be and finally stand as we were born to be.”

Have you ever heard someone say something and it rang so true that you remember it days later? 

This weekend I experienced nature on the property differently.  I went for a walk with all three dogs.  I collected flowers and grass thanking nature with each one.  With the darkness of December/January, I will have a remembrance.

We also made a return to a full day of riding.  It was a welcome respite to travel beyond our own little corner.

I have become so comfortable in nature.  I love to be in nature.

I am reminded of a time in my third or fourth grade year.  Myself and my classmates stayed several nights at a nature camp.  We rode horses, shot bow and arrows, all the nature stuff. 

However, it was a three-hour nature hike that I remember vividly.  I did not plan well and I was running late to start the hike.  And…I already had a full bladder.

I had the notion that we could not excuse ourselves to another side of a tree.  Even if we were miserable.  So, I suffered…and suffered, willing myself NOT to.  For THREE hours.  When it would have been so easy to just ask an adult and go for a “walk” in the woods.

I was not raised as a child to love nature.  Like many beliefs, I carried the expectation of what I should and should not do into adulthood.   UNTIL…I gave myself permission to find a tree.

It just took ME giving myself permission to be something different.  To not only be comfortable in and with nature, but to love being in Nature.  And that has made all the difference in the world.