One of the most uncomfortable realizations change delivers right at your doorstep is that most people (including you) grow attached to versions of you. When the same versions slip, fall, or even disperse into the universes coexisting with yours, it creates ripples in the world. Ripples that may often lead to disasters. Disasters which may include absence. A lot of absence. A surreal emptiness. An eternal missing that transcends physicality.
I’m changing, as we all are. The process is subtle and manifests itself in your life discreetly (I shall be addressing you because I can’t yet accept that this concerns me). You gradually lose interest in the things that you vowed you’d love forever. You find interest in things that you thought you’d never want to try. But most importantly, like a system with regular checks and balances, you incorporate the lessons of yesterday into today, and the lessons of today into tomorrow. It’s not always the best solution. People leave. You leave people. You distance yourself from those who don’t fulfill you. You wonder if you’re growing. You wonder what it feels like to grow and if you can ever measure it at all. But what remains constant is the loneliness of it.
Change is lonely, dreadfully so. You never know where to go, where to seek shelter. Sometimes you miss who you used to be but there’s no one around you to remind you of it. Who were you before time stripped you naked and forcefully converted you into a poor self-experiment? What would you be if you had all the power waiting in your hands?
Why can’t you be that right now?
I suppose we can come to me now. Just for a little bit. Entertain my fantasies (read: existential crisis)?
My world is both small and big, depending on the physical spaces in which I seek rest. While I see the immense beauty in small worlds, I’m not too fond of them. Especially when they cage me in and refuse to let me go. Lately, I feel like my world has been forced to contract. I don’t think we ever stop expanding. But I feel like I’m avoiding it as much as I can. It’s not the most ideal position to be in. I’m not even sure if it’s possible.
I try not to think too much about how the walls around me always feel restrictive. I try not to dwell on how the outside world is just filled with so many stories that I’m not sure I have access to. I drown my thoughts via physical distractions and I sleep my discomfort away. I wake up and pretend I didn’t dream. I try to live and pretend I am not just merely existing. I look at the blue veins on my wrist and think of all the dying stars that contributed to my creation. How can I be bigger than myself? How do I escape the person I am, the people I am becoming, and the people I used to be?
This sucks. Back to you then.
You’re changing and that’s great. It means you aren’t stale water, you don’t stink and you aren’t home to all the things that might eventually kill you. You’re adapting to the world, you’re experiencing the various yous of you. You’re becoming all the yous you perhaps never thought you’d be. Isn’t that awesome?
I can’t do hopeful chirpy right now. Evidently. No doubt no doubt no doubt.
I think in a way I’m just trying to change the reality of my change. I know I’m miserably failing. I would like to have dinner with a new story every day. I would want to write all the stories that there are in my world. I would want to do so many things. Sigh. I don’t wish to have my meals alone. Ever. I want to apologize to all the people I’ve ever lost. I want to forget the depth of my hurt.
Most importantly though, I want to be able to accept that I miss and I miss so deeply. But I don’t know what I miss in the first place.
