Footprints

I've wandered in the past many a time, looking for answers, looking for questions for answers, but no matter how much I wandered I never could find what I seeked, I never could find what my heart longed for. I've never known what it is that I crave for, nor have I tried to find out. I know of no such name for it, nor do I know of a feeling which feels like it. All I know is that it exists, form or formless, I cannot say, but it exists. I can feel it's presence running through my very veins, I can feel it's song in my very soul. I searched my past, but all it left in me was pain and longing, all it left was this lingering scent of a certain innocent happiness, happiness I haven't dwelt in for a long time.

I hitched a ride to the future, at least what I can make of the future I want to have or seem likely to have. There I wandered long in a pseudo-happiness which I believed to be real. It felt like I had drunk wine and was lost in a hallucination where all that existed was me and all the happiness in the world at my service. Light-headed and seemingly in love with the future, I thought I was close to finding that which I cannot grasp, I thought my search was coming to an end, I thought I had found my true destiny. Alas, all must awaken from their hallucinations and see the real world around them, stark naked and shivering. As the fantasy world dissolved, so did my sense of reality and optimism, and hatred poured in.

It was unfair, I thought, that the world was doing this to me. All I wanted was some peace of mind, and I knew I could not have any until I found that which I had never felt, until I found that which I couldn't even find a name for. It was supposed to be a beautiful feeling, at least that's how I imagined it to be, though it must be more beautiful than beautiful feelings are supposed to be, for it wasn't even something money could buy.

Then one day while wandering in my sadness, in my desperate state of being, I watched the sunset as an ocean wave rolled over the footprints my feet had made in the wet sand. It didn't disappear completely, but left an impression behind in the sand. It stayed like that until the fourth wave rolled over it, and then it finally disappeared forever. I don't understand what it is that I wanted, maybe I never did, maybe I never would, but at that precise moment I realized that if I didn't stop searching and start living soon, then I would fade away just like my footprints did and only when it's too late would I realize that I was fading away. Automatically I found that which I had been looking for all my life, happiness.