The Next Bold Move – Me Vs. The World

You’re at a very special point in your life, a unique position – young and uncommitted. You should ___. You could ___. Why don’t you ___. If I were you I’d ___. I’m jealous I want to ___.

Everyone seems to know what I should be doing right now, what I can do right now, what I want to do right now. Everyone but me of course.

Everyone seems to think all my anxiety, stress, fear and pain is just a passing phase like a unexpected summer storm. A flash flood of emotions that will soon run through the storm drains sweeping away the dirt and trash on the streets and the negative thoughts from my psyche. Everyone sees the freedom to do anything and everything. Nobody sees the responsibility of making choices and living with the consequences of this freedom. Nobody sees that I have left myself with no escape plan, no evacuation route, no back up. Nobody stopped to ask if I can swim before they let me jump off the high dive.

I’m unsettled which makes it hard to think clear. I don’t have a home, so technically I am homeless. I have an amazing wealth of friends that have opened their homes to me and I will never be able to thank them in a way that shows how much their generosity means to me. I know that no matter how bad it gets there are people I can lean on for help. Of course this means swallowing my pride and for someone as independent and stubborn as I am I’m swallowing a brick.

I’m trying to do schoolwork. I’m supposed to be working on my writing career. This is the time to do it. I have the time, the resources and the passion. So why do I spend all day running errands that should take five minutes? Why can’t I scratch the most simple tasks off my ‘to do’ list instead of letting myself get distracted and then distracted again?

I sit at the the Sod visiting or drinking or trying to say goodbye to whoever is there, but stay after being convinced to watch one more inning. To have one more pint. To one more whatever … It is never just one more. I sit at Monica’s Coffee shop on the corner of Adam’s and Park on the back patio. I spread out my pile of books, journals, computer, iPod, whatever else. I line it all up, pick up my tea because it is ruining the perfect arrangement and now my hands are full. I sit at home and try to concentrate, but give up and sort through the small box of clothes I am living out of after getting rid of almost everything else looking for something that I know is not there.

Not a stranger to procrastination I try to think of clever questions to text. Something that will start a text argument or a series of flirty notes that lead to having coffee. Anything but facing what I want to do. What I’ve wanted to do since I can remember. Something I have avoided doing because I am afraid to fail. If I fail at what I want more than anything what would I do then? This thought shackles itself to my creative mind with a rusty ball and chain. This thought is the worst of my devils. The antithesis of my muse. Actually I think this devil sent my muse on vacation to collect some overtime. I obsess over the thought, “what if I fail?” I spin until it paralyzes me and come out of paralyzation only to spin some more.

What I wish I would realize is it’s not failing that I’m afraid of. That’s not the devil I have to defeat. That’s not what holds us back from following our dreams. If only I would see the devil defeating me is only asking, “what if you succeed?”

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