It was a sticky summer night in the middle of July. Outside the sky was clear, full of stars, and the moon was shining brightly with a halo of silver. Inside the club, there was music, the sound of voices, glasses clinking, people toasting, smells of different colognes. Plenty of noise. My life was made of noise. It was chaotic, and I used to love it. But not that night. In the center of the dance floor, I stopped for a moment, and I looked around. Everything was the same. My friends were not different. However, something had shifted in me. Suddenly, I realized that I was not part of this environment anymore. It no longer gave me the sense of security and pleasure it had in the past.
A sense of belonging is attached to growth. If you are not growing, then you are dying. I felt like I was. It had been happening for a very long time. I clearly remember the first time I made Salt Lake City my home. I was mesmerized with the Rocky Mountains so full of snow in winter, the sounds of the birds and life blooming in the spring, the hot days of summer. I was 23 at the time, and pretty much fresh out of college and far away from my family.
Shortly after moving to the city, new friends appeared. They became my family because they could understand my frustrations around love, dating, and life in general. My friends and I lived for the weekends, for the joy of dancing, laughing, drinking. The moments of instant gratification at the expense of forgetting who I was.
However, there is no escaping it. Your soul is always speaking to you even if you are ignoring it. I became so good at it. How do you do it? More alcohol, more unhealthy relationships, more drugs, more chaos and drama. More of anything, anywhere and anytime. I reached that level that night at the club. The air became unbearable. I felt a big pressure on my chest. I ran outside for some fresh air.
When I finally made it home that night and I fell asleep, I started having the first of many dreams that would repeat over and over for months. In all of them, I was traveling somewhere but for some reason I would either miss the plane, forget my passport, or I was at the wrong gate. In other dreams, I was inside a train. I did not know how I got there and what I was doing there. The train was speeding so fast, and everything was moving, and I knew I needed to jump and go to the next train that was passing by. Mostly I woke up sweating and wondering what these dreams meant. I know for sure that I had to moving, but to where? Read more…
