I actually wrote this 2 days ago but it was much darker, so I chose to sleep on it instead of publishing. I’m really glad I did that. This is the slightly lighter version but feels closer to 3/4 truths.

I keep coming back to this place where I feel as though I’m making a mistake. That I’m only going to school in July because it’s the only way to keep from being honest. To keep myself locked out of the truth of it. To distract myself from the thing I’m actually supposed to be doing. But I’m still purposeless. I’m still waiting for the eureka moment and I don’t know why I would be doing that. I think it incredibly silly to imagine at some point, I will pick up a thing and do that and the heavens will open and the god from the monty python movies will say, yes..yes, that’s it. You’ve finally stumbled upon it, I’m so glad. The suspense was killing us over here. Well done.

Yeah.
But there are times when I get so anxious and think, I don’t want to be a mechanic! Am I crazy? I have a pretty good job less than a 15 minute walk from my house that pays my rent in this house I love and feeds me and the dog and why isn’t that good enough? Why does there always have to be more?
It’s like a fist in my chest, squeezing my heart until I can’t breathe and just when I think my heart will splinter and ooze from between the clenched fingers, the fist moves into my throat and catches there.
I want to cry but there’s a hardness that nothing can push past, as though the way has been blocked for such a long time it doesn’t remember there was once a opening.
I try to recall the moments when bliss was so tangible that time ceased to be linear and just stretched from smile to horizon and I’m feeling hard pressed to remember. I know there were moments on a beach on the west coast of the island, when darkness crept in and lights flared and we did our best to reflect the intensity of stars. And often we succeeded.
I think about the calm moments of a brain ticking, turning over a problem, coming closer to understanding what’s wrong, something stuck, unmoving, until bit by bit, it gives way and then the deluge, the flood of inspiration ceases to be a sought after thing and drowns the moment in success, in the satisfaction of a puzzle solved.

The trouble is, I have these moments in everything.
I have them in the way it feels to rest my head on a open window metal door frame while warm wind blows my hair all shades of chaos around my face and the only perspective I have is from behind a windshield, the only thing ahead of me is that place where the present meets the horizon.
I have them when I wake up and the sun is shining through my bathroom window on to a most inviting claw foot tub and I don’t have to be anywhere else.
I have them when I sit like this, and the words flow like water, sometimes a little too fast and my fingers start to cramp up from attempting to recall them once they’ve sped past the keyboard.
As many everywheres as there are everywhens, all the hows and the whos down in damn whoville, tall and small. It doesn’t matter what I do, those moments happen as long as I am present enough to let them. Why is it so damn hard to rememeber that and be okay with whatever decision I make, instead of going around and around on this insane treadmill of needs to be right!!! This is something that is going to affect my future!

OF COURSE IT FUCKING IS!
I’m going to end up somewhere, doing something, perhaps near someones. There will be plenty of moments for action and there will be plenty of sit the fuck still contemplation. Funny, somehow this one feels a bit like both.

I know that I’m scared of leaving my sanctuary/hut of isolation. I wonder how much of this angst stems from a fear that I’m not strong enough to do it alone, but have removed myself so thoroughly from the social cosmos I don’t know how to do it any other way. I think sometimes I try to convince myself that I don’t need anyone because it hurts less than wanting someone who isn’t there. Although, to be honest, even if someone was here, I’d probably thank them for coming, offer them some tea and then make polite conversation until they leave and I can go back to my one woman hula hoop ukulele dance party while Gala watches, half asleep on the chair. Nonetheless, the feelings exist and must be honoured.

So I wrote a thing. I didn’t notice until after that the first letter was H. I guess I’m rocking the whole 26 day challenge thing, even though it’s not going to be 26 days in a row. Whatever, ocean at the end of the lane, centre of the universe, dusty highway, surf break, tango salon, barefoot and in love…I’m still doing it.
Opening a heart wide enough for it to break seems way more important than hiding it away and allowing it to become dust.

Hiding at the end of the road, how does this help?
Which is the voice of reason?
The one that says stay, it’s nice here?
Or the one that signed up for school and will take us away from this?
Is stepping away from contentment, because I am content here,
The better path?
Is it necessary to push all the time?
Isn’t it also good to just take joy in the sitting still?
Am I so conditioned to living a life free of introspection
That I’ll do anything to distract from that?

Ducks don’t see any need to be more than a duck
And indeed there is logic in this,
Though nothing like opposable thumbs.
I’m watching them from across the pond
They bask in the last of the day
Taking the motion of this still water in stride
While I am consumed with contemplation
That only leads to a train of thought
“I should be doing more.”
More what?
More than this?
Why isn’t this enough?
How better or worse off can the world be if this is what I do?
Abide and try to be good to myself, however that looks.
Does it take the form of machine made better?
Does it take the form of an interpretative dance of my soul
Striving to reach a star far distant?
An unknown country, a narnia of sorts
Encapsulated in these words I write and share
Or not.
I feel closer to things I’ve forgotten
And habits I have yet to learn
Than decisions that should be made right now.
An urge to burn bright and take flight,
Another thing ducks take for granted.
Perhaps my trouble is that I do too.