*Warning: Naughty language ahead.

I’m ready to be free.

The shackles around my soul have grown weak and rusty, while every vein of my tender, beating heart has grown strong and feisty.

I’m ready to be free. I need to be free.

This is the first page of my life, chapter two, created from stardust, sweaty tears and spilling my guts.

This is me, breaking out of a lazy, convenient cocoon.

This is my long-awaited journey.

Driving down a winding country highway, I fly, I speed, I soar, I cry.

Navigating each wild curve of the road with wicked, devilish enthusiasm. I go, go, go.

Moving forward. Moving forward. I need to move forward.

I’ve been stuck, static, paralyzed, for far too long. I’ve been silent, sad, hiding, for far too long.

I want to spread my aching wings and peel open my feisty heart.

So I drive.

I drive until my hands grow sweaty from the sticky steering wheel. I drive until I can’t imagine driving for one second more.

And then I keep fucking driving. I keep flying. I keep soaring.

I open my blurry, grief-stained eyes.

Mountains stretch out before me, blanketing the horizon with fresh, pine-scented possibilities. I long to lick the jagged, muddy rocks that encase secret wildflowers. I long to touch the glistening emerald treetops.

But I can’t stay.

I have to go, go, go.

Restless mind, restless legs, reckless heart.

Untamed, unedited, not giving a shit about life’s easy-to-get-caught-up-in bullshit.

I let my hair down, shake it loose and let each messy strand dance to its own throbbing heartbeat.

Up in the mountains, the air gets cooler, crisper, fiercer; a violent breeze claws at my cheeks.

I pull my head back for a second, gasping at the pure brilliance of this wide-open feeling of possibility.

I surrender.

I smile.

I surrender some more.

Emotions flutter in my throat like flickering fireflies and I relish in my own tumultuous, electrical intensity.

For once, I’m not afraid of being too intense;  too loud; too overwhelming.

Fuck it.

I’m stepping into my skin.

It’s my time now.

I’m leaving the painful, sobbing past behind.

The aching memories, the nauseating waves of cloying self-doubt, the torturous addiction of hating every single thing about myself.

The era of being an achingly nice doormat is officially over.

It’s over. It’s done.

I respect the beauty of my suffering and bow down to its bittersweet power, but it’s over.

It’s done.

It’s my time now.

This is my life, chapter two. A fresh, blank page. New, magnificent, magical prose written in messy gold script that speaks directly to my soul.

Here’s to chapter two!

I know I’m only as free as I let myself be.

So let be as free as a Falcon soaring, gliding, weaving, through mossy, overgrown forests, daring to fly higher than the tallest evergreen treetops.

Yes, let me be free.

I’m ready.

I’m ready to sketch my own rules.

I’m ready to paint my own path with splotchy drips of turquoise and blazing neon green.

I’m ready to take terrifying leaps and risky chances and grow my own luck like smiling sunflowers in my backyard.

I’m ready, to feel, to love, to taste, to heal.

I’m ready to be free.

Rain down on me wild world, bathe in blood orange sunrises and cover me in thick, smoke-colored storm clouds.

I want it all.

This time, I’m living for real.

I’m living for me.

~

Author: Sarah Harvey

Editor: Katarina Tavčar

Photo: Daniela Brown/Flickr