I stand in a room.
The room is not new, nor am I new to it.
I just, for the first time or maybe not, realize that I am in a room and that the room is not the whole world.
It is my whole world though. I started building the walls to create a place that I could call my own, a place that would be special and unique. I had plans for great and marvelous things. At some point along the way, I started listening to others.
They told me that my walls were built wrong. They showed me hot to build walls. After so many years of their lies, my walls were as they told me the should be. My own designs were forgotten. My walls now all-encompassing, unyielding, and absolute. Built with vanity, pride, and shame.
In this room, there is a window. I am standing directly in front of it. It is covered in blinds. These blinds look shut tight. On the blinds is painted the most horrible picture. I think I painted it. The others told me of the horrors of the outside and that I should never open the blinds. They told me that truth and reality were in the room that I built and in nothing else.
I painted the picture to remind me of what was beyond. To remind me to stay where it was good and hide from the pain of beyond.
But...
But this room isn't good. I don't like it, actually I hate it. It numbs me to everything and constantly feeds me new lies.
I look again at the blinds, but this time they don't seem as tightly shut. I can see a light coming through. I take a step to the side to get a new angle and the light coming through becomes a blinding brilliance.
I cover my eyes in pain. I think that maybe it is dangerous out there and this is the pain the others told me of. But I already made the step, I have to see what is outside. My curiosity won't let me keep my eyes covered.
I finally uncover my eyes, its bright, but they start to adjust. I gasp, I have never seen such beauty. The colors are more than I could have ever imagined. I longed to be out there, but what if, for all its beauty, it wasn't safe?
But the longer I looked I saw people. They didn't look in pain, they looked free and filled with joy.
I had seen enough, I wanted to be out of the room, I wanted to be free.
Taking a step back in the room to find a means of escape, I stopped short. The room had changed.
No...
No, the room was the same. For the first time, however, I could see it as it truly was.
The room that I had built, that I had lived in, that I had felt so safe in, was the horror. The walls were built from deception, exploitation, and all of the filth from which I was trying to hide. I wanted to be sick. The light has revealed the depravity of my walls, but it also illuminated the door.
Once I saw it I knew I must run for it. For if I stayed in the room much longer I would forget again. Trading sight for false security.
I ran emboldened by the truth I saw, I got to the door and I saw that it was locked. I was terrified that someone was trapping me in here. I looked again though and saw that it locked from the inside. I had been keeping myself in. I struggled with the lock, it was rusty since it had never been used. I got it open though, and I opened the door. I ran through into the dazzeling light.
I was free. Indeed I was free.
