Holding pattern
I am in a holding pattern, and I'm not sure why. I don't know what this tether is comprised of, the one that holds me, however loosely, down. I wake up every morning and I wonder at myself, wonder why I am here instead of there, with no real idea of where there is.
It's much like being a teenager, this angsty feeling of dissatisfaction with the here and now. This blinded striving towards you know not what.
This is far more important, though, than any decisions I made as a teenager. This is, truly, the rest of my life, whatever it is I am longing to move towards. I know it, I feel the importance and impatience building. Yet still I sit and welter in comfort and the known. Fear is definitely a composing string on this tether. Fear of the unknown, fear of the images in my head of what people who want what I want look like. These preconceived notions are potent, are impossible to ignore. People who quit their jobs for ideals, people who throw themselves into uncomfortable yet fulfilling situations... those people live for a moment in happiness and then spend the rest of their adulthood regretting a single decision. They become rootless, shifty, homeless, dirty, poor, and needy.
Wow.
I don't know if that's New England talking, or my parents, or someone/thing else.
Whoever it is, it has become me.
I have stayed at a job where I get little respect and less fulfillment because that is what I believe will happen to me were I to voluntarily leave. I have tolerated a constant lessening of my self, of hope and joy and confidence, based on the vague idea that I would become something contemptible without a job like those I have had my entire life.
In the meantime, I dream a million different dreams, I build a thousand new lives, and I do it all within the confines of this constant circling pattern.
The longer I do this, the longer I wait to cut the tether, the more dangerous this becomes. I can feel things rotting away, can feel potential withering and strength depleting. My body is reflecting this inner conflict, and will continue to do so, gaining momentum, until I let my outer reality reflect my inner. I take too much comfort in knowing that whatever I lose will be replaced, that potential is infinite and strength is arbitrary. I will have the same options at any age as I have now. But what I will be able to do with those options will change drastically the longer I wait.
Don't wait much longer, Sarah. Don't let the options you've opened up, deliberately and aggressively, go to waste.
It's much like being a teenager, this angsty feeling of dissatisfaction with the here and now. This blinded striving towards you know not what.
This is far more important, though, than any decisions I made as a teenager. This is, truly, the rest of my life, whatever it is I am longing to move towards. I know it, I feel the importance and impatience building. Yet still I sit and welter in comfort and the known. Fear is definitely a composing string on this tether. Fear of the unknown, fear of the images in my head of what people who want what I want look like. These preconceived notions are potent, are impossible to ignore. People who quit their jobs for ideals, people who throw themselves into uncomfortable yet fulfilling situations... those people live for a moment in happiness and then spend the rest of their adulthood regretting a single decision. They become rootless, shifty, homeless, dirty, poor, and needy.
Wow.
I don't know if that's New England talking, or my parents, or someone/thing else.
Whoever it is, it has become me.
I have stayed at a job where I get little respect and less fulfillment because that is what I believe will happen to me were I to voluntarily leave. I have tolerated a constant lessening of my self, of hope and joy and confidence, based on the vague idea that I would become something contemptible without a job like those I have had my entire life.
In the meantime, I dream a million different dreams, I build a thousand new lives, and I do it all within the confines of this constant circling pattern.
The longer I do this, the longer I wait to cut the tether, the more dangerous this becomes. I can feel things rotting away, can feel potential withering and strength depleting. My body is reflecting this inner conflict, and will continue to do so, gaining momentum, until I let my outer reality reflect my inner. I take too much comfort in knowing that whatever I lose will be replaced, that potential is infinite and strength is arbitrary. I will have the same options at any age as I have now. But what I will be able to do with those options will change drastically the longer I wait.
Don't wait much longer, Sarah. Don't let the options you've opened up, deliberately and aggressively, go to waste.
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