Unbearable Lightness

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.

What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - by Milan Kundera

I have always been weighed down by the realities of my existence. I have embraced my mistakes and my consequences and felt unburdened with its acknowledgement. I could never turn a blind eye to the painful truths and facing them head on often enables me to size up my nemesis and plan my strategy against a foreseen enemy.

Like a tree that has grown sturdy with the spreading of its roots into the earth, I feel as though I stand on an open hill often solitary facing the extreme elements. I have bent to the will of the relentless wind, wilted under the heat of a searing sun and then drowned by the torment of the tropical typhoon, shivering, yearning for the warmth that almost always eventually came.

This is my existence and I have accepted it. Today I long to be lifted to weightlessness. I stretch my arms to my side and feel the summer breeze to my face and wish instead that I had been something else - a bird that can soar to freedom. A free gliding bag of air and feathers that can circle the skies, challenge the sun and know no boundaries to life.

I will lift my face to the white fluffs of clouds and feel the dampness of the chilly atmosphere as I am elevated to heights undescribeable that knees that would often weaken remained strong and stretched and yearning for further lift. I would cross the vastness blue of the ocean and observe the world from up above. I would soar higher than a red balloon that has escaped the hands of a little child and feel the bounce of wind against the rocks near the beach.

Freedom, lightness and weightlessness. Right now, I yearn for that. I will stretch my arms and lifted my face and felt the stare of the moon on my face. I will be engulfed by the light or the darkness, whichever it should be tonight, and I will never again feel the ground beneath my tired feet.

Tonight, I will choose lightness. Let me be free, let me be insignificant.