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My last post on this blog was JUST before everything changed. When does it not change? Specifically: someone who is very important to me hadn’t really entered my life yet the last time I posted. And it’s so weird to go back to that post and read it. It’s part of the reason I blog/write in my diary (I’ve had one since I was about 8 or 9. I wonder if the person who gave me my first one realizes I still have it and if the person who gave me my second one realizes the same). It’s pretty incredible to go back and read what thoughts you had in any particular moment in time. Some entries are just silly thoughts or little doodles. Some are dark and some have been folded since writing them because I don’t want to re-read those entries. It’s not about remembering everything from my past, it’s about acknowledging where I was and where I am.
Time is tricky. It speeds up when you don’t want it to and drags its feet when all you want for it is to run by you. And I fear it is also exponential. I don’t notice time picking up speed on a daily basis, but I swear even in the last several months, weeks have become noticeably shorter.
I don’t know if this change in perception has to do with a minor monumental and seemingly rapid approaching birthday, but I feel I have for some reason become increasingly more aware of some sort of timeline for my life. Some of it stems from finances (i.e. will I be able to save enough for x by the time I need/want the money (eg college funds for children I don’t yet have, a downpayment for a house I don’t know where, retirement)) some of it stems from trying to find the time to travel back home enough times a year, and some of it comes from the industry I work in: how much more time do I have to work at a newspaper before they disappear?
But all of it comes from fear. Fear of what is yet to come or not come. I don’t recall being so fearful of things in my future, things over which I have no control. I sometimes worry about whether my children will all make it to adulthood, even though I have none nor any immediate plans to start. Morbid things. Death a lot of the time is a theme. Death of a loved one. And I have no idea where this sudden fear stems from. It’s been sudden though. I don’t know if it’s because I have fear of so many things right now and death is the ultimate fear I have so when I start thinking about scary things like “Will I budget myself correctly this month?” perhaps then I start to think of a bigger fear, the. A bigger one and so on and so forth until my entire family and circle of friends have died including people who don’t even exist yet.
Maybe it’s because I spent my years before now preparing for very specific and known outcomes. Like college. And now I’m just out here, bobbing up and down in a gigantic ocean on my little raft with little else to brave the elements than a heart set on adventure.
Some parts of being an adult are getting easier. And living away from home have definitely helped me grow in that regard. Days where I wish I were 8 again wrapping top ramen noodles around a fork are getting fewer and farther in between. I FEEL myself transitioning into a new phase of my life. I just don’t know who I’ll be on the other end.
In one of my American Indian studies classes, I remember learning about a cultural behavior of some society I don’t remember now where, when referring to the future, instead of gesturing forward and in front of themselves like in today’s American society, they would gesture behind them. The past was a gesture in front of them. The thought behind this thoughtless gesticulation was that your past is known, you know what it looks like, as if it were right there in front of you. You could inspect it, and even hold it. The future, being unknown, was behind you, not as important as where you had been.
To think: Where you had been is more important than where you are going. Maybe it would help to make sure you’re staying in the present. Looking at all your options even more carefully. Because you know what choices you make in your past will always be right there in front of you.
Rambling, obviously. This wasn’t so much of a post for your enjoyment as much as it was a way for me to get back into my blog. At 3 am … Oops.
Excuse the grammar and incomplete thoughts.
Much love.
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getting real. sorta. 