Despite his fierce attachment to freedom, loneliness looms over him. His urge for freedom manifested in his life as homelessness and difficulties holding down a job. His car was his best friend. He was unsure what to use the sessions for; he was content with his life, and regretted nothing of those years of free roaming, rebelliousness, addictions and intractability. However, a little voice inside was telling him differently.
“What if you would not be able to travel anymore?”, asked the facilitator, who sat next to him.
“Then I would feel lost”, he replied softly.
“Yes, so as long as you are on the way, you don’t have to feel that you are lost”, returned the facilitator. “The road has become your answer to the restlessness and fear, paved with bricks of rebelliousness and an illusion of freedom and independence.”, said the facilitator kindly. “But where do your loneliness and fear find a home?”
A long silence followed. In his mind he went back to all those toxic relationships where he thought to have found a soulmate, to then only turn destructive. He thought of the numerous times where he put his own interest last, in the hope that one day he would be seen, only to be left feeling that he was taken advantage of.
Freedom becomes a prison, when it is a flight away from yourself. You become an emotional refugee, where your loneliness is seeking shelter in someone else’s acknowledgment, recognition or validation. But they will never be able to get it exactly right. Because it is not their responsibility. And so you keep travelling, every time more confirmed in how no one understands you, how no one will take care of you, and that you will have to do it all alone.
Something started to sink in, and he nodded.
“I have been trying to find a home outside of myself.”
“You have made yourself emotionally homeless,” reflected the facilitator, as they both stared at the distance in front of them.
“Look, there are your loneliness, and your fear, and all the other emotions that are still looking for you”, pointed the facilitator.
He took a deep breath and could see it. As he looked more closely, he could see that they looked like a few young lost kids. Younger versions of himself.
Something started to soften inside of him.
“I think it’s time, to start bringing them home”.
“Yes, one step at a time”, smiled the facilitator.
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