earthly tendencies

I have this notebook that I write in. It is bound in leather, the pages a soft yellow. And mostly blank. It is less of a diary and more of a productivity journal that houses to do lists, itineraries, goals. Though the first ten pages are chock full of notes, the rest are waiting, eagerly, to be filled with ideas, knowledge and truth. 

As I stand today, my future is completely unwritten. I have no obligations. I have a college degree and work experience. I recently returned from Africa, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Seattle and will soon tick Denver and New Orleans off of my list. I am young, smart, traveling and living any twenty something’s dream summer. And yet, I am full of fear.

My insides crunch together in a knot, unable to release. I find myself reaching for beer each night just so that I might relax enough to eat. At bedtime, happy dreams of my future that is completely up to me do not lull me to sleep. I play shows and movies as my eyelids droop just so that I don’t have to think.

Otherwise, I am up until the sun rises again. And once that sun comes, it is another day I could be crafting my future and living my dreams and having it all, but I don’t. I watch the world pass me by, waiting for it to get dark enough to crawl back into bed, put on a show and sleep, wake, wait, sleep, wake, wait, sleep, wake, wait, sleep.

You see, I have ideas that could stretch to the moon and back, an imagination so wide, and so grand that I couldn’t possibly live to see it all come true. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be allowed. Fear would stop me. My anxiety, the true culprit, would take over and debilitate me. Excuses would build into a mountain unmovable. I can’t be a writer, that’s selfish, I need to go to law school, become a senator and combat climate change through government intervention, but I will only learn all about climate change if I become a scientist so maybe I should get a PhD in biology or ecology or geology, but on my drive the other day I saw that really disgusting cattle farm that needs to be investigated so I SHOULD become a writer, an investigative reporter, and save the world that way, but none of those can happen now, so maybe I’ll just settle for a salaried job in the school district, kids are cool, right? and schools always need help so maybe I can just give back on a local level and have a family and become an Instagram blogger mom then I can still write. This is my every day, times a thousand.

The pressure comes from all angles. I am not good enough for myself, I am a Millennial so I’m not good enough for any non-Millennial, I am not good enough on social media, I am not good enough for entry level jobs because somehow I just wasn’t able to get five years of work experience in digital content creation and curation and interpretation and negotiation and have published 20 articles in the four years I spent in college (standards reached only by magicians).

The rims of my eyelids burn from the revolving cycle of wet tears wiped dry with toilet paper. 

If there is a world outside to enjoy, I wouldn’t know because at this moment I’m stuck in an eggshell. Enveloping me in the same position, legs tucked under my knees, shoulders slumped towards my computer, the shell won’t crack.  

Nothing can help me break away right now. Right now I have to wait. There is no preparation for the loss of a loved one. 

Although my grandmother is still alive, her last breath, I hear, is near. Through my mother’s sobs, my brother’s concerned demeanor and my father’s attempt to jump to the next steps, I know that 411 miles away my grandmother lies in a hospital bed, awaiting God’s hand to take her to heaven. And I’m not there.

I want to be there to hold my grandmother’s hand one last time and to hold my mother in her time of utter despair. The news has brought me endless tears, but to my mother, unyielding heartbreak. Being so far from my support system and alone in my emotions is indescribably difficult. Each one of us knows that at some point, all of our lives will cease, but realizing that firsthand leaves me without words. There is nothing to rationalize. There is nothing to relieve the pain. There is simply nothing to do but let time move forward. 

The only thing in the world that matters is the people in it that you love and those that love you. As a rather emotionally detached person, I find myself wanting to hold my loved ones so tight that they can’t escape me. I find myself wanting to be around the people I have here away from home whom I love so that I can practice what it is to love. I want to spill every ounce of my heart out onto them before it’s too late and I lose the chance.

If I’ve learned anything in young adulthood, it’s that life is messy. It isn’t a clean canvas painted perfectly with proper strokes and impeccable artistry. Instead, paint gets spilled right in middle of the oak tree you were painting in the foreground. Then the cup of dirty paintbrush water drops, splattering murky brown across the background’s rolling hills. To cover it up, you add more paint atop the mess but it never looks quite like it did originally. The tree is a little crooked now and the green hues aren’t quite the way you imagined. So you keep adding and spilling and reapplying paint creating layer upon layer of progress and mistakes. And then, without even noticing, you have it—depth, an understanding of the steps you took to get to the place you are now. Others can’t see the spills and splatters, but you know they are there. If those mistakes weren’t there, then the painting wouldn’t have come out as lovely as it did. You wouldn’t be who you are today.