#letsbestill

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).