i haven't been to the ocean in a long time. even when i lived in san francisco, i rarely went. in retrospect it strikes me as a little odd that there was so much to do and see and i didn't take the opportunity to make the most of them. i may be getting a little ahead of myself here though.
those times i have stood on the shores of the ocean i have been moved in a way that i can only describe as religious, i mean not exactly that, but the way that i get the feeling some people get when they talk about god. there in front of me is something so vast, so powerful, that i am overwhelmed by it's enormity, and for some reason i am affected by this in a way that even the endless night sky fails to impress.
a few days ago i had one of those moments where something in my universe shifts by a degree and things come into focus, i was able to see or at least begin to articulate something that i have danced around for as long as i've been writing in this blog. it is the beginning of a lesson that has taken me nearly thirty-six years to learn and has been part of most of the problems i have created for myself over my life.
that the fear of the enormity of choice, of commitment, of perfection has kept me from truly trying.
i'm not sure if i'm really using the right words here but its like the idea of what i think i should be capable of and failing that ideal, opting out. to quit or surrender without putting forth my best effort because i "know" it won't be what "think" it should be...
i think what i mean is that essentially i have been so afraid of what might or what ought that i have missed out kept myself from experiencing what is, and what might have been if i had just tried.
i'm not sitting here bemoaning the loss like i have done all those years, i just acknowledge that i might have made more out of those years. what is important is that i can make a decision to make the most of the years i have ahead.
i have been so selfish, so afraid, so afraid.
it has been several months since my last post here, in that time i have found employment, i have returned to school to finish my degree, i have built a relationship with myself, with those that i love.
and yes it can be hard.
earlier this week i was working on a final project and was not nearly as done as i wanted to be. i simply got as much as i could finished and went to class the next day, turned it in, and am waiting on the results. i know that this might sound like no big deal, and maybe it isn't, but in the past id have medicated, not gone to class, not turned in a project that wasn't some perfect polished and unrealistically ambitious product.
the point is that i chose to participate, i didn't shut down, close off and give up.
and for me that is something that would have been as alien to me as would be breathing water.
No comments:
Post a Comment