When I was younger, I remember very distinctly looking upon women in their late 20′s and early 30′s who were settling for something less than ideal- a man who was okay, a career that didn’t move them, a lifestyle that was boring, an idea that was inferior, a feeling that was less than everything it should be, and I remember complacently snickering to myself, that I was so much smarter and wiser than them. That, I, would never in a million years, settle for anything less than exactly what I wanted. I was so self-assured in so many ways, and so broken with insecurities at the same time. Fast forward ten years, and I find myself, well, thinking these thoughts- that I am getting older, my biological clock is ticking, and that very soon I will be closer to thirty than to twenty. And while I am by no means husband hunting, or thinking about adopting a baby from Africa, I really am starting to get it.
I used to paint a lot when I was younger too. And to be honest, I’m pretty sure it was all just mediocre. I can’t remember exactly when I stopped, although I know it was sometime after I graduated community college. At some point, my life was moving too fast, and the emotional roller coaster that was my very early twenties needed a medium that could keep up with the ups and downs and twists and turns. So I started writing. If I felt like garbage, I could write a poem and 20 minutes later feel free. If I felt great and wanted the whole world to know it, then I could write a bad poem at best, and feel okay.
And now that I am almost 25, today I decided that it is time to return to my previous love. I pulled out all of my brushes and paints and everything from storage this afternoon and I was overwhelmed with a feeling of coming home. Not that I will by any means stop writing, but, I’m okay with returning to a medium of expression that requires a single sustained emotion for more than 20 minutes.
Time is so scary. I think it’s because it is so hard to wrap your mind around something that is everything. Some days fly by, and on others one tick to one tock feels like an entire eternity. The winter always drags on, and somehow the summer is a blink of an eye. Our bodies change and grow and shrink, and our minds develop. It controls the strange and sometimes mysterious ways in which all of our paths intertwine and connect and fall apart and realign. It is the shifting of the tides, the rotation of the planets, the all powerful cosmic force that controls everything. And we can not control it in the slightest. We can track it, and we can, in our own feeble ways attempt to stop it, and we can live as slaves to it dwelling on past failures, or in planning only for future happinesses, or we can accept the here and the now. and none of those are easy to come to terms with.
where is the balance? where is the happy medium between remembering the good times, thinking back to mistakes not to make them twice, and reminiscing with old friends versus living in the present? at what one point do you give it all you’ve got, and at what point do you just relax and let a day go by? how much planning for the future is enough, and how much is too much? how do me and time become homeboys so that I don’t just wake up at 50 one day and go what the fuck have I been doing my entire life? how do I fit it all in?
phew. the above is exactly what I mean. it is so scary because it so hard to understand and there are too many unanswerable questions and anxieties.
so I’m trying to slow it down. I’m trying to enjoy some simple moments. I’m trying to be more like McGoots. He doesn’t ask why the grass is green, he just rolls around in it. And let’s face it , I’ll never stop asking “why ?”, I’m still a writer, but maybe I can stop asking “when?”
