Once Upon a Time. . .

Once upon a time there was man.  He looked like an ordinary man on the outside.  He had a good profession, was a hard worker, had many friends and a good heart.  But on the inside this man was broken.  He carried regret in his heart and anger in his spirit.   He had been hurt by people he loved and who he thought had loved him.   He made some bad choices in his life that led him down some pretty undesirable paths.  He felt lonely, lost, ashamed, uncertain and was filled with self-doubt that at times led to feelings of self-loathing.  Each day he would set about the business of his life. But each night he would lie restlessly in bed unable to find sleep - finding instead the demons that would haunt him until the sun rose in the morning.   Until one night, exhausted after several days of self-sabotage and loneliness, the man fell into a deep sleep.  As he slept he dreamed.  In the dream, a familiar voice spoke to him.  Barely louder than a whisper it told him to let go.  Let go of the anger, the hurt, the disappointment, the regret, the embarrassment.  It told him to open his eyes and look around him, to close his eyes and look within.  In the dream he saw a mountain, a familiar place where he had gone to seek solace from time to time.  On the top of the mountain a fire burned.  Through the fire he could see his own face streaked with tears.  The man woke up from this dream with a start.  His night clothes were drenched with sweat.  His heart was racing and his breathing was labored.  Though the sun had yet to rise, he sprang from the bed and stumbled to his desk where he grabbed a pen and a notebook.  He frantically started to write.  He wrote of childhood heartache, adult heart break, choices he regretted, feelings of inadequacy, anger that he'd been holding onto for far too long, grief that he had suppressed.  As the sun started to rise, he tore the pages from the notebook and stuffed them into an envelope.  He sealed the envelope and wrote on it with black marker the word "PAST" in large block letters.  He threw the envelope, a small shovel, some matches, notebook, pen and a water bottle into a backpack.  He hastily left the house, got into the car, and drove to the very mountain that he had seen in his dream.  He hiked to the very top without stopping or looking around, just focusing on what he had to do.  When he arrived at the top of the mountain, the same spot that he saw in his dream, he found a soft patch of land.  He dropped his bag, opened it, grabbed the shovel and started digging.  When he finished digging, he reached into the backpack, grabbed the envelope and matches and held them tightly in his hands.  He stared at the envelope, and as he did, his eyes started to fill with tears.  He quickly wiped them away, but they reappeared just as quickly.   With his hands trembling, he fumbled with the matches.  After several tries, the match finally lit.  Without hesitation he held the match to the corner of the envelope and watched as it caught fire.  He slowly dropped the envelope into the hole he had dug and he watched it burn.  By this time, the tears were streaming down his face.  He was on his knees, arms clutched around his stomach, sobbing.  He cried harder than he had ever cried before.  He yelled out in anger and despair and sadness, slamming his fists into the ground before him.  Much time passed in this way until he finally had exhausted himself.  By this point, he was curled on his side, just staring into the trees.  Until he noticed that the fire was no longer burning.  It had stopped long before that - but in his emotional release he had not realized it.  He sat up on his knees again and looked into the hole that he had dug.  All that remained of the envelope were a few scattered ashes.  Using his hands, he buried the ashes with the dirt he had cast aside earlier.  When the hole was completely filled in he stood upon it.   He breathed slowly and deeply.  He felt the rush of the cool air through his nostrils filling his belly and leaving through his gently parted lips. He raised his face to the sun which was now shining high in the sky.  He closed his eyes and let the sun shine upon his face, warming it.  The warmth spread from his face through his whole body deep into the center of his being.  He opened his eyes and looked around him.  He saw the leaves blowing in the  breeze. Heard them gently rustling as if whispering secrets to each other.  He could see the highway in the distance winding through the hills.  He could see the small town where he lived with its rooftops sprinkled below.  He tried to picture what was happening beneath each of those rooftops.  He imagined a new mother bathing her infant child, a classroom full of children waiting eagerly for the bell to ring, a doctor consoling a patient to whom he had just delivered bad news, a husband calling his wife from the office to see how her day was going.  He was struck by how small everything seemed from his vantage point, yet how big the lives of the people beneath the rooftops must seem to them at this very same moment.  He was also caught off guard by what he imagined as he stared down at the village.  He had imagined people in the act of love, compassion and hope.  These were all things that he thought had been absent from his own life.  Yet if he was able to imagine these things, he was also able to do them.  He sat back down, grabbed his notebook and pen, and started writing again.  This time he didn't write about the past.  He wrote about the present.   He wrote about his intentions for living a life in which he would commit himself to giving love, compassion and hope to others.  He wrote about a promise to himself - a promise to find peace within.  To forgive himself.  To forgive others.  To try his best and to realize that others are also trying their best.  As the sun started to set, he gathered his belongings, walked back down the mountain and drove through the twilight back to his house.  When he arrived home, he removed the pages from the notebook on which he had written, and placed them in an envelope.  He reached again for the black marker, wrote the word "PRESENT" on it, and set it on his bedside table.  He sat on the bed, kicked off his shoes and felt sleep heavy in his eyes.  He laid back on the pillow and drifted peacefully to sleep.  As he slept, he dreamed.  Again he found himself on the mountaintop. Again he heard the familiar voice.  This time the voice was accompanied by a small figure that was approaching him.  He strained his eyes to see who it was, until the figure came clearly into view.  The figure was that of himself as a child.  The child reached out and grabbed the man's hand.  The man stared, amazed, into the young boys eyes - sparkling eyes filled with light and peace and innocence.  The man tried to speak, but no words would come.  The boy spoke instead.  He looked back into the eyes of the man and said simply, "I love you."