Do you ever close your eyes, and it really is as if you can hear the sound of the ocean. A roaring, thunder, as if your head really is caving in. I've spent the last hour in tears, reasons for which I cannot explain. Crying happens a lot these days, and I think that's just a part of growing up, perhaps. Realising that you are feeling things. Attempting to comprehend emotions, the in-goings and outgoings of existing. Realising actions have consequences, but being left with the question of what it is all worth.
Life has always felt a little scary-and feeling's weird, and though I am not afraid of it, there is something about being forced to live that can bring on full blown breakdown. I think today that's one of the mini epiphanies I have experienced. It's not the thought of never doing anything that's scary; it's actually getting up and moving and, well, doing stuff (for want of better words). We (am I projecting??) spend so long just sitting around pretending to live and dreaming of the things we'd rather be doing, promising ourselves that we'd jump at the opportunity to see our fantasies actualise. But when they do? That's when things get a bit frightening, because then life no longer has to live up to your expectations, but you have to live up to your life. You have to get out, you might leave people, you have to plunge headfirst into the unknown, often the uncomfortable. And all the while there's this inch of a whisper, asking what if I leap and don't land. What if you get given all your chances, and you fuck it up. My hope is that this will not be the case, but one can't help but wonder. Fear of failure and rejection is the most common among humans, and it takes more effort than imaginable to bury it fully- to dig up the ground beneath you, hide away your fears under damp earth and dance on it.
It's all these kind of thoughts that get to me, that mess with my head and leave me with damp eyes. These are the things that really frighten me.
Six months is only a short time. A blink and you've missed it/'oh how time flies' type of thing. But the oddity off a short time is that soon enough it becomes a long time, and suddenly you're looking back and you've realised years have passed. You're not a twenty year old breathing deeply before her computer screen, you don't laugh with the same lungs, or stare at the same walls. Perhaps you've moved on. Perhaps everyone else has. People have died, tears have been shed, lines have settled and life still hasn't been lived. One day you look back and realise time was passing all along, and that the people you loved were slowly forgetting each others names. With this in mind, it is important to look at a short period of time not just as a blip in your existence... but a seed. Which in itself is frightening, because again it requires something of you, it asks you to tend to life and to take action, which of course also means there is possibility of inevitable failure. It also means that you might end up growing in a direction you did not expect, and then still you end up apart from those you love, but at least you've gone somewhere. Who knows where it may take you.. a 'short time' is not an excuse to leave your life behind only to walk back to the mundane after some months of "freedom". It's a start. If you want it to be. And who knows what I want.
I've been musing on the expression 'out of the woods'. I think it's pretty apt really when existence is concerned. As with a forest, in life we are occasionally gifted with glimpses are the starry night. A glimpse at an endless eternity, time, something ethereal. Beneath a heavy canopy dappled patches of sunlight dance around, tease and taunt, as do our brief moments in the sun. A glimpse of the clearing. Revelation. I think we spend our whole lives in the woods really, and it's not until the very very end we find our way out. Then bathed in golden understanding we turn back to see everything we've walked through. Maybe we'll realise all the tears were worth it. At least they showed us something...
So...
Life is scary. Feelings are weird. Time is... let's not even go there. Just, god, move. get up and move and dance on it and feel stuff, because it is better than being twenty forever on the cusp of things and too afraid to lean that little bit forward. Don't make the mountain your enemy. Get out. Get up there instead.
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