i want you to know

I want you to know that I don't dream of doing those things because I can't. There's too much for me to do here, too many people to help, and too many people I love that I can't let suffer.

I want you to know that I stay, not because I am not adventurous, but because I find adventure in the small, familiar places that form my home.

I hear of the great things that people do, of the magnificent sights I may never see, and think that perhaps you find me uninteresting, without dreams, perhaps without wonder for the greater world beyond.

And it pains me to think that might be the case, because, I'm sure if I were in your shoes, I would travel far and do things fearlessly...like dancing in Argentina, with my eyes closed to the world, diving into the sea, and climbing peaks in gusty winds.

I want you to understand that my thoughts are not plain. I am simply content to be where I am, with those I know. You are not more sophisticated than me, though, admittedly, I sometimes think that I don't compare. That perhaps my intellect does not hold up to things you know.

But I, too, know things that you don't know. I've seen things you've never seen, and will probably never see, things that people travel far and wide in order grasp. Well, they happened to me, everyday. These are not novel to me. The poor man building houses from nothing, communities coming together in the hot sun, laughing and forgetting their poverty. And yet you think I don't know, or that I am so unlike those who seek these situations out in order to become grounded. Don't forget that there's more to me. That these experiences were closer than you know. That I don't have to seek them out. That I lived close to it and spoke with them. The lessons are more a part of me than they are for those who can really only have a cursory glance at them.

So don't think I don't know, don't care, don't make a difference. I'm simply content, because these have grounded me and we've gone through it and have risen out of it.