Set Back, a Journey of Healing

It was so hard to find my home when messing up with my compass. I could not see it anymore. I went so far while I was walking side by side with all those so dear to my heart, helping them find their own; then I forgot how to return to mine. There are no traces, trails, and clues left behind to show me back.

The beauty of the journey was to see the beloved ones searching for their purposes. Some may have found theirs naturally and moved fast forward, while others fell, picked themselves up, and moved on. This journey requested that I be swift and cautious with those who move fast while patient and attentive with those who stumbled. But none of them asked for my help; none needed me; these journeys are theirs, not mine.

There was a continual dispute between my brain and heart; both got exhausted. I had confused both when I took them many journeys away from home. I consumed them as tools for other people’s stories who did not need or ask me for help. I have intruded on different journeys to escape mine. The home was not missing; it was ignored.

A little girl was waiting in one of the corners of my home, very confused, lost, and lonely. She needed to be loved; she was begging for care and safety. When I found her, I knew that I had reached home. She waited too long but never gave up on me; her loyalty showed me the way back; I only had to follow my sorrows until I reached her and got home.

“It is alright now; it is okay!” I had to hug her, carry her into my arms, and tell her that it was not her fault; it was someone else’s story that hurt her; she was part of that story because she was an experimental tool and a role. She was a segment of a tale, an unsuccessful trial, a failed test, but it was neither her trial nor her test, more like collateral damage that unintentionally caused pain.

“It is alright now, it is okay!” she has a whole life to live for, experiment with its roads, overcome its obstacles, roll down and climb up its terrains, love, laugh, cry, get angry, and feel; feel it all with all her senses because this is the real story, her story, her consequences, her failure, and her success.

“It is alright now; it is okay!”

Dana Obeid