I wonder

I wonder where I’d go if I just let myself wander.  I am not a wanderer, physically or in my thinking.  I tend to start in a specific place and know where I’m going, and even how I’ll get there.  I’ll allow for a little fluctuation – maybe we can call them mini-wanders – but a return to a specific trail is definitely required.

But what if I wandered?  Would I lose the certainty in my voice, the solidness of my steps?  Would I find myself alone, with no one following me, even if before they were only on the same path as me?  Or might I blaze a new trail, one that others might follow?  And of those two – alone or trailblazing – which is more terrifying?

I am often the loudest voice in the room – except when I’m with my family.  But is the volume simply a disguise to cover my uncertainty?  Can I bear to let multiple lights shine and risk that mine won’t be the brightest?  I wonder, indeed, what it would take to be but a single voice in a discordant chorus, and to be okay with that.  That would require, I think, a kind of courage that was not pre-installed in my original packaging.  I wonder if I bought the auto-upgrade feature.