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In the Distance | Natalia Selvaggio

Take my shoes and put them on. Close your eyes. And open them. It’s now 4:00 a.m. It’s always 4:00 a.m. If you look around, you’ll see you’re in the middle of nowhere. You’re standing on dry patches of dirt. There’s a breeze of wind but it never touches you. And even if it did, you’d never sway with it. The moon is bright and shining but its light never attracts you. There seems to be nothing for miles. Until you look and see a small unidentifiable object a great distance away. You can’t seem to figure out what it is. For all you know, it could be a monster ready to charge at you. Or it could be your greatest fear. It never occurs to you that it could be something good. And the longer you look at it, the farther away it seems. Fading in and out of your vision, it’s never within reach. Watching, it seems like an eternity waiting for something that isn’t going to happen. It’s almost painful to see something you could reach out to but never do. But sometimes you look down and you see your feet aren’t moving. Why aren’t your feet moving? You’re not making any effort to reach out to what’s in the distance. You can’t expect it to move and meet you halfway. So you have to move. But why don’t you? What would be enough? What would be the breaking point? When would make you have the motivation to start walking towards it?

That’s where I stand now. Simply watching that thing in the distance. Knowing I could run to it. Reach for it. Whatever it is. But I don’t. And I watch that thing in the distance everyday. Stare at it. And it stares back. Almost disappointed. Like it’s calling me out. “Come on just a little further! You can reach me!” And I don’t respond. I don’t reach out. I only watch it.

I could easily make the change myself to go and run to whatever is in the distance. But I never do. And I might never reach for it. I’ll go forever without knowing what’s in the distance. I can’t wait for the wind to push me forward because it never has. I can’t find peace in the Moon’s light because I never have. I need to find the spark inside myself to reach out to whatever it is in the distance. Anyone, can simply watch as life goes on around them and ignore it. But choosing to act on it is your own spark within yourself. And if you never use that spark, nothing will change and it will always be 4:00 am.

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