Depth Perception

I have this dichotomy within me. Maybe we all do...maybe it's normal. Maybe everyone feels like they could talk for seven years without pausing for breath, only to try and find that there is nowhere in particular to start. Maybe everyone wants the exact things that are worst for them, recklessly pursues dead ends, allows chasms in the most obvious friendships, and neglects the most important aspect of life for weeks at a time. Maybe everyone wakes up every so often and wonders where the past months have gone. Maybe everyone has danced that deceitful dance with Time, the one where she drags and drags and drags and drags, only to trick you into missing the days in between. Maybe everyone experiences this...or maybe it's just me.

This summer started as a blank slate. It was supposed to be a time of growth, a time of rest, a time to reconnect with certain things and people and disconnect from other things and people and have lots of new experiences and read voraciously and learn unabashedly... So why do I feel like I've wasted it? Why is my excitement to move back to the place where I belong and flourish tinged with sadness? Why do I live my life with such dedicated procrastination that as my months at home dwindle to weeks, which will inevitably dwindle to days, I suddenly feel rushed to squeeze four months of life into two weeks of time? Why can't I learn the lessons that have been repeating themselves for years now?

I define myself as a writer. I greet all life experiences and stages with open arms, as long as I have my writing to make sense of it later. I write to be known; I write so that people may know who I am. And yet, sometimes I write to conceal -- to conceal the truth, to conceal myself behind words that offer some semblance of protection. Still other times, I am so unsure of who I am that I am paralyzed and quite literally cannot write; these are the hardest times. These are the times like this summer, when I am so consumed with boredom and confusion as to what I am doing with my life that writing seems an insurmountable task. It's not that I lack things to write about -- it's that I lack the means with which to make sense of any of it.

And so, here I go again. I wax philosophical about what I should have done, what I could have done, what I wish I had done. I lie in bed, contemplating the heaviness of this piece, and I have to sigh. All I do is ramble. I throw some big words in, mix in the parallel structure that is so idiosyncratic to my work now, and end with some hopeful little note about "next time"...and then what? What will I do when I wake up in the morning? Will I suddenly have the motivation to move through my day with purpose? Will I reawaken my resolve to LIVE instead of just "live" like I have been all summer? I can't really answer that.

But I hope so. I really really hope so. Because tomorrow is a new day, a blank slate of its own. And I'm going to make the most of it.