In my experience, a slow morning usually leads to either one of these things: waking up with a gentle reminder that life, and whatever is worth living, is beautiful, or getting suffocated with emptiness because I know it could be but mine is a void space.
Yesterday morning, the unimaginable happened: both sentiments were in equilibrium, peacefully holding the ground next to each other. I’m sure it was partly triggered by an eerie mixture of morning light glow and the certainty of none. I might look physically fine to the oblivious eye save for my lack of sleep hence duller skin, but mentally, I was a monstrous wreck hiding in plain sight, waiting for the hunts and huntresses to come.
I want to say less “no” to new things, jump off the cliff, and swim in a big lake in the middle of the pouring rain. I want to quit and take on a new job, go on more dates with myself, and happily sleep at night stressing about no deadlines. It all boils down to the desire to truly live life, to put it simply. One day when I grow old, I want to look back at my youth and regret nothing instead of fretting about changing nothing.
While life is limitless and the boundaries of what may pass as possible stretch beyond my understanding, uncertainty will always be the ghost around the corner, however. Will unfollowing the map put me in the right direction, or will I stumble upon a werewolf trying to blow down a house of cards? It’s like asking this simple question: should I quit a merit-based job I feel so passionate about, or should I stay with the risk of being snowed under?
It’s hard to see the beauty in life when you’re afraid to be exposed to uncertainty, but isn’t it the point of living? Are you not holding those tiles on your side of the mahjong board, and is life not a game you always have to gamble on? I’m trying to remember that a crushed dream is another step closer to a new one. It’s normal to lose sometimes.
Building the life I’m envisioning is not a walk in the park. I want my life to become more than a black-and-white stroke in a palette of colors, but the fear of being exposed to uncertainty is still there, chaining me to the only brush I know. I feel frankly empty right now. Life seems less appealing the more it feels like an unsolved maze. Maybe it’s a common symptom for a girl in her twenty-five. Maybe it’s not. I just hope that wherever it is, the wheel will take me to where it’s beautiful and limitless.
