I intentionally sat cross-legged in a field of wildflowers. Above me towered angled-tipped evergreens and a cloudless sky. Even with the chill of the elevation, spring had arrived, and I felt its aliveness as bumblebees stumbled into the hearts of blooms.
My phone rang. Another call I chose to miss.
Was it up to five now?
The first call felt like a paddle to my chest, a shocking feeling. With each subsequent ring, the tension and panic lessened. I fought through the thoughts like Tarzan with a Bowie knife, hacking my way back toward the wildness and peace of the moment.
I was used to photographing nature. Sitting atop a boulder and watching the river’s movements. Taking a blanket to the park or myself for a solo swim in the town lake.
But the choice to sit eye to eye with the flowers, as a lone alpine bird streaked overhead, felt different.
I returned to myself.
One call was plenty. I hadn’t overslept. I wasn’t hungover. My battery wasn’t dead, and I didn’t have a flat tire. My body wasn’t unwell somewhere, unable to wake.
I’d deliberately, wholeheartedly, and consciously drawn a line.
Still, doing so meant breaking my code. The too-hot coals of irresponsibility and failure singed the underbelly. It was what I’d been tiptoeing around all along. This knowing.
And yet, this was the cost.
The penance I had to pay.
For freedom.
For relief.
I watched my phone light up again, its power wrapping me in a silk cocoon of suffocating obligation. I waited for the voicemail to be released.
But the notification never came.
Who was calling, you ask?
Well, that doesn’t matter so much, does it?
What mattered was that I’d built an identity around being reachable and dependable. My ethics allowed little room for nuance or need. I was built to prioritize commitment at any cost.
So giving myself the mountain, the flowers, and the deep lungfuls of oxygen-rich air was an act of rebellion against the parts of me that no longer served me.
Eventually, they stopped calling.
The mountain remained.
And I went on with my day.
Love, Jaclynn