(6) A Place Where I Can Think

On the first part of the journey, I was looking at all the life...The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz, and a sky with no clouds...

For a lot of my high school life I walked to school. It couldn't have been more than a mile, but in the Texas heat, with every step I was convinced I'd collapse in the heat, especially in the spring. At first, freshman year, I'd carry a bright blue umbrella and, rain or shine, I would have it above my head to make sure I didn't catch my death of heat stroke. I think I learned that from one of my grandmothers.

In any case, over time I got weary of walking but, since I couldn't skip school I had to learn how to deal. I find I deal with things better when I have music to relate to how I feel. So I delved deep into Daddy's old music files and found this group named America. At first I thought they weren't for me, and then I heard "Horse with No Name," and fell in love.

The lyrics make some sense, but not a lot. Basically, a man is taking this trek through a desert and he finds a horse that helps him along. The sun's hot. He's tired. He's burned. But eventually it rains and he lets the horse go it's way as he goes his own. At least that's what I took from it.

I been through the desert on a horse with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain...

Metaphorically speaking though, the guy had been in this state of gloom for awhile and he relished the heat and the dryness, even though it was a harsh change from where he'd come from. It reminded him of who he was, what he was about, and what he was trying to accomplish. Recently, I've begun to understand that aspect of the song as I feel like I'm stuck in my life right now and the alternative is this frightful idea of failure.

It's different, failure. Maybe because I spend most of my time trying to either excel, or stay somewhere in the middle of normalcy instead of reaching greatness. Greatness which everyone save for myself seems to think I'm capable of. I don't want to disappoint people and I don't want to fail at life. But I'm realizing that success is measured by my own ruler, and I just have to define what success is and not try to live up to everyone else's standards. You'd think I'd know that. But I always forget.

I just have to take that first, scary step. The rest after that won't seem so scary and won't take as long to take. Just like those long, agonizing walks to school in the heat, the first step under the scorching sun was always the hardest, but the more I took, the less the heat mattered. Until I got home and laid on the tile floor face down for a few minutes and it all hit me. But for the sake of the argument...

Spreading love
Dropping knowledge
Lifting a foot at a time <3