Clearing a Path

        It was the same routine every morning: wake up way too early, put on my best athletic gear – a pair of sweat pants that were still just too tight and the only pair of shoes I owned – and go for a “run” to the relaxing sounds of the song birds at sunrise. It was never much of a run though. I always started at a brisk pace, but within a block's distance I had usually cut back to more of a leisurely walk. Even still, the sweat came freely and by the time I had made it even half way down my little path that I held so dear, fatigue normally had the best of me.
         Oh, that little path. I did love that path, every morning at sunrise. It was the only thing in my life anymore that was constant. Everything else was just a whirlpool of change, all the time. Why could no one else live without so much complexity in their lives? Everything always had to be a big deal, everything was always way too important, everything was stressful. And more often than not, it came back to me. Everything came back to me. “Honey, I need you to pick up the kids from school today, something came up.” Sorry dear, I'm working, like every other weekday. Like always. “Well you're just going to have to leave early then.” I can't just leave early, I'll get fired. “And you're children will be stranded at school all day, what's more important to you?” Fine. This time. I'll do it this time. Next time, give me some warning.
         But there was never any warning. It was always something different. Whether I had to go take care of my two beautiful children, or whether I screwed something else up at the office – there was always something to screw up – or whether my darling wife had packed just too many things into one day – again – there was always something. And it always came back to me, it always made my life difficult, my life too stressful. Why could no one just keep all their stress to themselves and handle everything like a real life adult? Why couldn't they just leave me out of it? Why couldn't they be...
         Like that little path? Out my front door, three blocks south, two blocks east, and then a quarter mile down on the right hand side. That was where freedom and sanity still lived. Just a sharp right turn out of the neighborhood and into the realm of the relaxed, down that little path. It wove through the forest, that path. It went up little hills and down little hills, over a bridge then parallel to a creek, then back over a bridge, up and down some more hills, through the forest, and then into a clearing. And what a clearing it was. In the midst of all the pandemonium of every day life, of my life, of the lives of everyone else afflicting my life so that it might never be peaceful, there was a clearing. Every morning I came to this clearing down my little path in the middle of this forest, up and down hills and past the little creek that barely even trickles so late in the summer. Its like walking out of a nightmare and into a dream, and every morning I have only to stop and stare at the clearing. I look past the clearing, into the woods on the other side, just down my path; I look up into the clear sky of the rising sun; I look back behind me, thinking that my chaotic life may not be able to find me in here. Knowing that it won't find me in here.
         But everyday, I have only to keep on going. To keep on walking, keep on trying to loosen these sweat pants. The doctor says its why I'm so stressed, that if I just lost a little weight in my gut, it would lift all the weight off my shoulders, too. I tell him I've been fat my entire life. When I was eight years old, I wasn't stressed. When I was fifteen, I wasn't stressed. When I was a kid, people didn't bother me with all their shortcomings and struggles and tell me I had to fix them. When I was a kid, they left me alone. No, doc, it's not my gut that's causing me stress. It's everything else. Everyone else.
         But if he hadn't told me that I was a fatty, I would never have discovered the path. My little path, my sunrise excursion every day. It was all I had to keep me sane. It was all that was constant. I needed that. Even if no one else could understand, I understood, and that was enough.
         And that clearing! What a clearing it was, the clearing where freedom and sanity still lived. There, in the middle of the forest, up and down the little hills and past the trickling creek. What I wouldn't give to be able to escape there, to escape the monotony and the stress and the incessant demands of everyday, to be there, where nothing and no one could ever upset the balance I so desperately craved, the balance that so permeated the clearing down that little path.
         And here I now stand, facing the forest, staring down the path and into my daily brush with sanctuary. Failing to linger, I take the first step onto that path. I exhale a sigh of relief as I'm overcome by the caress of the calmness under my feet. I take another step, then another, and soon I'm immersed in the forest, making my way down the path. It's all so familiar. I feel like I've walked this path a million times, like I could close my eyes and never lose my way.
         I close my eyes. I allow my feet to take me, allow the path to take my feet. I'm guided uphill and downhill. I feel myself wind to the left, I walk straight, I hear the sound of the trickling stream underneath me; I cross the bridge. I follow the calls of the water as it shouts directions at me, keeping me glued to that path, winding left and right and left and down a hill. I hear the hollow thud of my feet, the water underneath me; I cross the bridge. I hear the creek call farewell from somewhere behind me.
         Lamentation echoed in its voice.
         And then the light of the rising sun washes over my eyelids, beckoning them to open. I try to force them shut, but to no avail. With a blinding welcome I am greeted by the clearing in the middle of the forest. Scarcely managing a squint, I sneak a glance across to the other side of the clearing; the trees of the forest await me as always. I steal a look behind me to pay homage to the journey that brought me here, to thank that little path that delivered me safely to my temporary salvation. I peer upward, saluting the sun for being so eternally faithful.
         I pause for a moment more to reflect on all that which I left behind, all that which I have successfully eluded once more. I hear my wife tell me to leave work early. I hear my boss threaten to fire me again. I hear the cry of my children at three in the morning just after falling asleep for the fifth time that night. I hear the lamenting cry of the trickling creek, somewhere far, far behind me.
         I hear the bang of the pistol as I pull the trigger.