So, I am a little delirious, thanks to the multitudes of cold medicines I have been trying while looking for a remedy for this annoying ailment, but I am going to try to post regardless of my clarity of thought. It could be confusing, it could be very confusing, but somewhere embedded in the run on sentences and ellipsis, there will be a flake of honesty. However trite or conceived it may be, most prefaces to literature contain an apology to the reader, so here's mine. I am sick, and my blogs come to me on the spot. They are sort of a written meditation of careless thoughts floating through my mind. When I have a question I pause and write about it, examine it form different angles, and then hopefully decide on an opinion for that day. Then I hope that by putting it out "there" I will get other's opinions on the same insignificant thought distracting me from productivity.
While not being able to sleep last night, interspersed with feverish dreams and persistent coughs, I thought about the idea of starting over. Many of the dear ones in my life have noticed that the last year or so I have been looking for something else. Call it quarterlife crisis, call it your twenties, call it searching for yourself, heck...call it mental instability and fear of commitments. I don't think that it is really any of those things. I am yet to be what I know I will become, and I am unsteady in the process because I am undecided as the best path to take to get there.
Here's the question of the day? Is starting over possible? Is it necessary for success, or even for forward progress? When is it right to let go and move forward.? Is it possible to completely let go?
During this transition phase of my life (but aren't they all transition phases?) I have concluded that I do need a change. Fear of failure has stopped me, and held me back. I have been reserved in choosing to move, but I don't think I will be anymore. I have been scared to expose my heart again. I have wanted to make progress towards writing more poetry, towards getting a masters in English Literature, and move to New York City. I feel like this is where I am supposed to go. I am afraid. I don't want to leave my friends and family behind. I don't want to quit a good job, albeit one I find horribly frustrating and unrewarding most days, to be left financially unstable.
When we start over, do we really begin again. After letting go of a love I had for a very long time, I have found it very hard to begin again. I have dated and cared for people. But I find that I am a much more vulnerable person than before. The non success (we won't call it a failure) of my previous relationship, has made me guarded. I am quick to be affectionate, quick to care, but very slow to open up and reveal the soft parts of myself again. I am at a place where I really want to. So in this regards, I am wondering if starting over is possible. How does one leave scars behind, and move on unaffected. I am not sure that I want to leave everything I learned in the past year behind me, or what I learned about myself in that relationship behind. But do I need to start with that proverbial clean slate to really make myself available?
I guess, to end my rambling, I question if we take with us wherever we go, the experiences of the past. If the goal of life is to achieve happiness (and that's another discussion of its own), then to move forward in life is to move towards happiness. Can we do this only by letting go of the past, or merely the things holding us to the past. Is there ever a possibility of moving on with learning and understanding, but unihibited by the nagging nostalgia of things that once were, dreams we once had, loves we've lost? Is starting over a reality? Or are we, in all actuality, running from something. I see too many of my friends leave, and change, and end up miserable. I see people leave and find immediately what they were looking for. I see people haunted by things or people from their past.
The only advice I get is to "follow what you know best in your heart." Well what if that heart has led me astray in the past. I guess part of the beauty of our condition is the not knowing. The excitement of learning what will happen next. The thrill of discovering the world through multiple lenses. I guess I am saying that I am ready for anything and everything...to start over, to move forward, to fail and to let my heart open to love.
Time for more tylenol pm. I'll probably delete this post tomorrow.
4 comments:
"Well, toward the end of The Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha is speaking to a young student named Kolya Krasotkin. And he says, Kolya, you're going to have a miserable future. But overall, you'll have a happy life."
Two beers down, I hesitated before opening my third.
"When I first read that, I didn't know what Alyosha meant," I said. "How was it possible for a life of misery to be happy overall? But then I understood, that misery could be limited to the future."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Neither do I," I said. "Not yet."
(H. Murakami)
from an old geezer's experience:
Here's the question of the day? Is starting over possible? YES, it is!!!
Is it necessary for success, or even for forward progress? only when YOU think it is. (from what you've written, it's obviously time. follow those wonderful instincts!)
When is it right to let go and move forward.? well, timing is everything. you will know when it's right. there will be a change in the air, a boost of confidence from within, listen, listen, listen....
Is it possible to completely let go?
yes...and no...you can put the past behind and not dwell on it, but the simple fact remains that your experiences are part of who you are and have become. embrace them, recognize them, learn from them, acknowledge mistakes and then think to yourself, hey, it's okay...no big deal...be nice to yourself and then think positively. it's really all we can ask for...live, love, learn, and grow.
oh, and take more cold medicine. ;)
hmm. buy a motorcycle and run away to mexico. it worked for me. it gave me a good point to try to start fresh. i was in the exact same situation and place in life and quarter life crisis and relationshit and fuctdom. now i feel a bit recharged and energized and reborn. just a bit. enough at least to get my creative processes flowing again and most of my evil thoughts that would plague me of the past, out of my head.
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