this week’s Thought (singular)
sometimes, you have to stop a nascent hyperfixation in its tracks and go ‘no. i must deal with whatever is making me want to cultivate you in the first place.’ this is a task of immense strength and immense importance. a tear slips out of the corner of my eye as i close a tumblr search. i almost reopen it, but no. i must go to the phone/email boring part of my mobile now.
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that they remember to carry an umbrella the next time they go out. thank you for joining us. may you step out the door, pull on your shoes, suddenly recollect the sight of it on your bed, run back in, drop it in your bag, and feel very smug and proud when you have to use it on your way back home. + a bonus something that many manifesters forget to consider (i’m at the top of the game): may the rain be gentle enough for an umbrella to actually be of use.
a very warm welcome to old readers as well. may good sense continue to prevail.
hi
another month has flown past–they always seem to be doing that. this is what i noticed amidst the blur.
joy is like the open sky, but i forget to look up. i get so scared of tripping over something on the ground in front of me, of tripping over my own two feet, that my sight is trained on my left foot right foot left foot right foot left right left right. i am a horse with blinders on, and i miss the expansive and endlessly blue umbrella expanding until the horizon in every direction above me. i just have to keep reminding myself to look up every once in a while.
it has been an odd month. i keep saying that, but every month in this phase of my life feels odd. i have been stressed, but loathe to use the word. i have been in my head more and present less, all while getting things done. the work that has occupied me is foundational and necessary, but largely unstructured. i have been told that it is ‘fun’ work, but i struggle to see the fun in it. weirdly, in the middle of all of this activity, an inaction cripples me. i take days to muster the courage to make to-do lists, and promptly get too scared to read them. i get scared that they will not get completed, that even if i do all that i possibly can, something will come along and mess it all up. this proclivity to pessimism is not new, but it has been feeling particularly enhanced.
i have started noticing the shades of green around me. the rain has made everything lush and vibrant. a single crop of plants, large and small leaves overlapping and undercutting each other and tiny buds peeking through the foliage, carries a palette so vivid and wild that dissection of the borders seems impossible. there’s a spot near the periphery of my apartment where i always subconsciously slow down. on the left, beyond the pebbled footpath, a large trunk emerges from an overgrown cluster of mismatched green. its canopy hangs over me. on the right, the sun is either rising or setting, always painting something rich and flamboyant with yellows, blues, and pinks.
as i prepare myself to move to a college campus in a different city in less than a week, many things have begun to demand a reckoning. i somehow cannot tell the difference between nervousness and excitement, and it suddenly feels very important that i should be able to know that. it suddenly seems imperative that i know exactly what i’m feeling and any implications of it. i think about what i’m leaving behind–the quantity, the quality. i consider whether it makes me more happy or sad. i find myself, inexplicably, wanting to hide. i need more time in my cocoon. i don’t feel ready, but i tell myself that nobody ever does. i don’t think i’d recognise what ‘being ready’ felt like even if i were to feel it.
my attention has been repeatedly drawn to the community around me. i met a friend after a while, and she spoke of gratitude. i can’t help but feel it while simultaneously feeling awkward about displaying it. as i scramble to get everything done, the help and company of friends and family is like an infinitely deep well of support. how unthinking this support is. i marvel at the unflinching firmness of this comfort, and i get embarrassed at having such large thoughts about such unmentionable things.
nostalgia plays tricks on me. i can’t help but feel like i’ve overlooked something big and important in my childhood, some crucial lesson that everybody around me seems to have mastered. and still, i miss it. puzzlingly, i find myself being nostalgic about the future too. somehow, i have decided that i know what it looks like, and i have decided that i do not like it, and i have decided that all i can do is make my peace with this. so somehow, i miss what i have decided i cannot have. i am attempting to make nostalgia–both for the past and the future–more sweet and less bitter. i am nudging myself towards being less certain, more liquid. i am telling myself that life is searching and stumbling, of finding and of letting go. the sun too looks liquid sometimes. its bright colour bleeds out into the fluffy white clouds surrounding it. i can be like the sun.
i am trying to let my inadequecies be, however close to the surface they seem to float. i try to see them through the ripples in an impassioned manner, work on not obscuring myself in the process of obscuring them. i know that they have not always been so eager to jump out, and i also know that they will not always continue to be. i know that my glasses are tinted such that sometimes, i am the only one who notices their teeth maliciously nipping at any toe that dips inside. it is exhausting to pretend that water will be in motion forever. it will inevitably return to stillness. i will return to stillness.
ps: happy june :D
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this week’s Song
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thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
nostalgia about the future is such a golden concept. best of luck for college <3