I think I could die happy right now. Sitting in this swing. This air, these noises, this view, the breeze. It’s a scene plucked straight from Hollywood. The perfect summer, the golden nostalgia, the moment of self enlightenment after the fall apart but before everything resolves. I think this may be the closest to peaceful I get.
But yet...my moments like these don’t last long. It’s such an American trait to feel like I should be doing something right now. To feel stressed because I’m not stressed. To feel guilty that my life doesn’t revolve around a 9-5 job that I hate or babies or a man or any other plethora of self guilt we can serve ourselves in abundance. I think this is where the “pleaser” side of me really shines through. This process is ingrained so deeply in our conscience it’s hard to tell what our actual beliefs are versus what we’re groomed to believe. The work culture handed down from generation to generation. That nagging in the back of our brains every time you sit down after getting home from work. Or after a meal. Or anytime, really. That little voice that taunts us “you should be doing something…”. There’s always something to be done. And when there’s not, we make something else up. But can we all agree it’s fucked up to feel guilt and shame for having down time? Or for choosing a different course for our life than what society expects? But what if the things we make up are just the distractions our mind makes to keep us from actually facing ourselves and what we really desire in life?
If traveling solo taught me anything, it’s this. The moments of down time when you’re traveling alone can’t be filled with a dinner date or a nightcap with your friends. No. You just have a shit ton of time to sit with yourself and really stew in your thoughts. In this place is where you find a whole new level of “to do” list. The things that take time and thought and trial and error. The character breaking and rebuilding and the hard questions we need to ask ourselves. Am I really happy? Or am I just coasting? It’s the pause that gives our consciousness time to catch up with us.
I realized today I live my life ruled by fear. I think in a way we all do. Fear of failure, fear of letting people down, fear of not being enough, fear of being too much, fear of missing out (oh, heyyyy.). Today it dawned on me that the way I react to fear has shifted over the past few years. What I fear now is not experiencing life to its full potential. A fear of settling for what I know without tasting each unknown. How do I know if I want a simple life in a simple place if I don’t ever try a life that pushes me past my comfort? Fear has gone from being an oppressor to being a motivator. In my past, it’s kept me attached to something that wasn’t serving me because I was more afraid of rebuilding than I was of staying the same. I was the fight in fight or flight. I held it together because I couldn’t bear the thought of it falling apart. In ways I still am the fight, but my perspective has changed.
Now, instead of fighting to hold onto something because I’m afraid of what happens when I let it go, I find myself fighting fear itself. Running head long into discomfort. New places and people and loneliness and trying something I’ve never done before. Definitely living in a world that my most consistent and strongest self critic tells me is selfish and reckless and dangerous and impulsive. And maybe sometimes it is. But how else do we find our full potential? How else do we find our true character and full strength but with action? Without action there is no life. Without action, it’s all a dream. An assortment of unexecuted “one day” plans in our mind. They sit and they build until they eventually fade into a memory. Action turns them to reality. So the next time you find yourself sitting and hearing that little nagging voice telling you to do the dishes or get the mail or wipe your ass or whatever...pause a little longer with yourself and make sure you’re giving your core some time to breathe and be heard.
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