I have lost confidence in my own instincts. This is tragic. My instincts tell me one thing but I second guess them, trying to see all angles, trying to see if my instincts are being driven by selfishness - hmmm, that may be the truth of it, my instincts are probably driving by selfishness, or at least self-preservation, and by god I need to re-learn to trust them again.

Year by year, month by month, day by day, I am dying, losing myself, drowning in the domestic prison I have led myself into. I am not who I was. I am not who I want to be. I am who I have become through my own choices. Can considerate choices be the wrong ones? I think so. Wrong for me, at least. This cage, this self-inflicted imprisonment - I could flee it but am bound by my own word. Bound by my compassion for those I share it with. But my selfishness twist compassion into something less pure, something poisoned and full of self pity. I could be free but not without harming those I have promised not to harm. I should not have to flee my prison to be free, but I don't feel free to develope the depths of strength, of mind and heart to be free within the bounds of my cage.

It is no wonder that the Buddha left his family to seek liberation. What once seemed perverse now seems so understandable. I'm dying inside. I want to be free. But I won't free myself. It seems that I will have to find a way to be free within my chains.