I know my life is not the hardest it could be. I know there are people who would call my life a simple walk through the meadows. No major tragedies, nothing that could be described as a catastrophe, all damages within apparently manageable limits... or are they?
Why does it feel as if everything was crashing on top of me? Am I that weak? Can't I take an obstacle or two... or eight?
Three times a week I drive and miraculously find a parking spot by a subway station. Three times a week I spend just a few minutes on the subway, two stops from Queens to my destination in Manhattan. Three times a week I walk down the Fifth Avenue, eight or so blocks. Then I sit in class and wonder: "what on earth am I doing here?" It all seems so unreal in comparison to the rest of my life. But that's the smallest from my problems. At least I think so. I have very little clarity on what the major problem is. Maybe I cannot even see it. If I did, could prove too much. Or maybe I exist within a gradiation of problematic greatness or smallness with no clear endpoints?
I feel helpless when I want to help. I feel ignorant when I want to know. I feel speechless when I want to talk. I feel lost when I want to show the way. Everything feels wrong. So simple. How unbearable. I am facing it every day and every night. Staring at me through different eyes but always equally draining. There are no easy answers and no help within my reach. After all, why would there be?
2 comments:
I think it is juggling all things that have equal importance that makes your days difficult right now. Each individual part can be handled, but when everything is put together and demands you at the same time you must choose which element gets attention. It's the choice to do for one or not to do for the other that makes it hard, I think. You are strong -- stronger than you know. You have a vision that you will see to reality. The juggling makes the easy or pleasurable parts feel surreal and maybe insignificant in light of everything else. Well, that time that is yours -- and yours alone. It is precious and also truly part of your reality. Embrace it. Enjoy it. It won't last forever. And you and yours will be fine.
That feeling of "what the hell am I doing here?" is one that most thinkers--as in people who think, as opposed to drown out their thinking--battle over and over, principally at moments when we shift gears. In fact, if "we" didn't ask such questions we wouldn't be here. And here is not an easy place. But it is the only place. And it gets better, with time and struggle.
Post a Comment