03/25/2023: Dear Mother Nature
Today was a nice, deep thinking type of day. A day to get out, see my family, have good conversations, and have some good laughs. I feel like I got to see everyone I wanted to and everything seemed really enjoyable. There are definitely things I miss about home. The home cooked meals, the country, the rain. The rain especially triggers my memories more than anything else. When it rains out here, I’m suddenly sitting in the back of the truck in the garage, watching the downpour, thinking my deepest thoughts, feeling my deepest feelings, putting my thoughts and feelings on paper.
I have loved and grieved out there, in my own makeshift sanctuary. It was the place I would always go to sort out my inner conflicts, my inner turmoil that I carried. The sound of the rain on the tin roof was in my ears, the smell of the earth was in my lungs, the healing hand of nature was soothing me, comforting me. This has always healed me down to my soul, and I long to have a place like that again in my life.
When no one else was there, nature took care of me, helped me sort out any troubles that I may have carried with me. Whether it was a walk through the backroads and trees, or a meditative moment of solitude as the rain came down outside the garage, it was always enough to reassure me of my place in the world. When family or friends did not understand, nature listened. It took me into its embrace and made me brand new.
It is a feeling I don’t even know how to explain, but all I know is that when it calls to me, speaks to me, I can never ignore it. It got me through so many hard times. In my youth, when anything could quite possibly be the end of the world, all I had to do was ask nature for the answers, and she would never cease to provide for me. The pull to nature is still very strong within me, even now after all these years.
I wish to find a place I can go to find the answers I seek in adulthood. I need nature more than ever now. I have so many more questions, so many hidden feelings that need proper counsel and guidance. I never felt that I could wholeheartedly find that in my worldly relationships alone; something in me always knew that I had to withhold the most delicate thoughts and feelings from people, to hide the deeper inner workings of myself as a person. I knew deep down that my path was nothing like theirs and they couldn’t ever possibly understand what I needed to feel whole. So I looked for fulfillment in the wild. And I never had to hide, to beg for understanding. Nature always provided me with everything I needed to be what I was always meant to be.
Nature knows all my secrets; she has kept them well over the course of my life. I know that she will hold everything dear that I have shared with her during my darkest times. My one true confidant, my one and only place I could ever find pure solace. The peace I found in nature when the storms raged on within me was life changing; it still is when I get the opportunity to speak with her to this day. The wind in the trees, the rain that drenches the earth, these are the ways in which nature has always spoken to me, and I am missing that connection as I grow older.
I hope to find that pure connection once more, in some way. I don’t want to lose the bond I found so long ago with the wild outside world. It has shaped me in so many ways; I could never forget her and what she has done for me when no one else could. I owe everything I am to her. I hope she can find me again.