Everything runs, plays, and slips away

It is a rite of passage to lose your way in your 20s, to wander down many paths questioning every decision you make, and I can’t help but wonder if there are a select few of us who are lucky enough to not feel this way, the chosen ones who constantly feel their feet sturdy on the ground, always pointed in the right direction. For awhile there, only for a brief period, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would be one of the lucky ones, but then again I think I jinxed myself, letting my confidence grow and my ego weighed too much for my frail body to contain, or maybe I was just deluded into believing something I desperately wanted to be true. There is not a morning that passes me by where I don’t helplessly wonder what I am doing with this life, and if it will ever be enough.

It’s ironic because there are a couple of moral codes I live by, phrases played on repeat in my head, bouncing in between memories and emotions and places to visit and people to remember, their presence constant enough to keep me sane. 

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

What’s meant for me won’t pass me by.

It’ll pass.

The irony is that I wholeheartedly believe in these sayings, whispering them out loud to myself in moments of despair, moments of restlessness, unbound by the expectations of what I want to do versus what I need to do. Yet I still find myself in bouts of frustration, anxiety over everything I have not achieved yet, everything I want to succeed in, but have not quite reached that point. And I can’t help but compare myself to others, straining on my tippy toes just to measure up to what they have attained like I am standing with my back against the doorframe, and the pencil mark above my head is just out of reach, and no matter how high my calves extend, the physicality of me hitting the mark is next to impossible. 

I try not to measure my success with numerics, with the number of degrees I have or the number of places I’ve visited. I try not to think about the fact that I have lived in the same city for almost all of my adult life, that it feels as if I have remained stagnant and am slowly rotting, becoming stale on the shelf while everyone else is just beginning to ripen, the glow of the mango skin a much better attraction in comparison to my browning and the wrinkles I’ve developed. I try to think about all the friends I am lucky to have in my life, my family who is just a call away, falling in love again, a healthy body, everything else that should measure happiness in life, but I still can’t help but dwell on dreams that have not come true yet, or dreams that were arms lengths away, my fingertips barely brushing them but they slowly fade into the past. 

I am desperate to peer into someone else’s mind, to pry open their internal monologues in hopes of finding a friend, in search of a companion who also does not know which path to venture down. Please, let me know if you are also plagued by thoughts of failure and the fear of achieving nothing in your lifetime, that you will not be remembered for much, and slowly, over time, even your own bloodline will not remember the mark that you have left on this Earth. Are you afraid, also? Are you afraid that you will not leave this world a better place than when you first arrived? Do you know what you are doing, where you are going? Please, may I follow you? Just for a little bit, though, just so I can find a semblance of control, a taste of confidence that someone’s life is headed in the direction they want it to be going. Is that too much to ask for?

My biggest fears are the numbers 1, 30, and 31. Each month that rolls by is another reminder that time does not stop for me, a hard slap on the back to suck it up and keep going. Around 10, I find a bit of comfort, my heartbeat settling down a little, and I can finally take a breath. But as the teens turn into twenties, the pressure on my shoulders weighs a little heavier with each day gone by, one more expectation, one more goal unachieved, bearing its burden until I feel it in my weak knees. Give me a month, and what do I even do with it? I have my passions, I have my hobbies, but where do they go in my lifetime? What do they fulfill for me, for my career, for my ability to live a difficulty-free life? 

There is no more hand-holding, no more rulebooks for me to follow. They have cast me into the ocean with nothing but meager floaties and my grit that is dampening with each stroke. It feels as if I have been swimming for days, for months, and yet all I see still is the vast blue water, salt filling my lungs as my legs begin to ache from treading. Keep going or drown. Those are the only two options. So I pick up my head, as heavy as it may be, my waterlogged ears and hair stringy with the gravity of water, and I choose a direction. Is it the right one? Will it lead me to land? I do not know. I can not dwell on it; I just have to keep swimming.