Free or Lock and Key

From where I sit at my computer I can see the lady across the street is just coming back from her walk. A part of me is jealous of her. I should have been out there bright and early this morning and be just coming back from my walk too. I was doing so well for a while but I’ve been slipping ever since I started this exam.

Mornings are my best times to get cracking on whatever I intend to do. The exam is what has been foremost in my mind lately. So I get up, shower, come to the computer, write, and then I attack the questions and let the rest of the world go on around me. I tell myself I’ll go for a walk later but often if I don’t do something right away in the morning then it doesn’t happen at all and there are only so many things one can fit into the morning hours.

So yes, part of me is jealous of her but the other part of me is glad I don’t live in her skin. I watched her walk up to her front door right now and reach for her key to unlock it. I can already hear what you’re thinking. What’s wrong with that? How else is she going to get in? True.

But we live in a very friendly neighborhood where everybody trusts, looks out for each other and are part of the neighborhood crime watch. It is broad daylight. We live at the end of the street. There is open farm land on the other side of us. Her husband is still in the house when she goes out walking. I have to ask myself, what’s the fear?

I can’t live that way – under lock and key. Maybe it’s because I don’t have anything of real material value that I don’t think anyone else would want bad enough to come in and steal it and if they do, maybe they need it more then I do. Maybe it’s because I’m still a farm girl at heart and I have a different mind set. Maybe it’s because I trust and have faith in people. Maybe it’s because I believe in the law of attraction and I don’t want to think that way.

Or who knows, maybe I’m the “unwise” one and maybe I’m just being naïve and the lady across the street is the wise one when she turns the key in the lock the minute she strays more than one foot from her door. I’m not saying it’s not wise to lock one’s door and certainly when I lived in Edmonton I locked my doors more than I do now and I experience fear just as much as anybody else.

What I’m saying is I don’t want to lock myself out from the world and I don’t want to live every minute of my day in fear of what “could” happen. I don’t want to be going about my day desperately clutching a key and thinking someone is out to get me. I want to open my door in the morning, stand in the doorway, open my arms and welcome the world.