Puddles of freedom.

I love puddles. Ever since I started being a little boy 22 years ago, I've loved them. Mostly, they are fun to splash in, sometimes they are really big, sometimes they have cool reflections and sometimes they are the nastiest things ever. Maybe literally. At work, there are a lot of puddles because the building does not yet have a roof and water collects on the concrete. There are a lot of puddles outside too, but I don't really like those ones because they are really deep and super muddy. However, this is not about those puddles, this is about the ones inside.

I went through a couple week streak where I really didn't like my job. Not that it was really all that bad or that I didn't feel fortunate; that was not the case at all. My mind was simply elsewhere. I would walk through the building to deliver materials to the electricians who needed them and splash through the puddles on my way. Except, for tiny moments, I was alive in another world. I would imagine stepping into the puddle and falling into an alternate reality.

You know the feeling when you step off of a dock into deep water? The cold envelops your entire body and for a second you think about gasping for air, but you don't because you're underwater and that would be stupid. That is the feeling I would imagine each time I stepped in a puddle. Actually, who am I kidding? I secretly hope to fall into an underwater world each time I step in a puddle. I imagine the cold surrounding my entire body. I long for the feeling of being almost out of air and finally coming to the surface. I wish... I wish I was on a dock with screaming (joyful) all around and the sun beating down on me. Children chanting for me to go in the lake. I suppose each time I step in a puddle, its like reliving those moments when my body entered the cool lake on hot summer days. That was camp. It is in these simple moments of reclaimed reverie that I find freedom.