I was chatting to some childhood friends this morning over a cup of coffee, about how our generation spans two worlds. Growing up slow but having to adult fast.
In hindsight I failed to plan when it came to the future. I had this dreamy idea that life would always just work out and to some extent it very much has.
I have a job. Three for that matter. I get to cycle, run and surf as I please. I have a beautiful place to stay in. Food to eat. I am not ungrateful. I understand that what I have is a privilege. But I constantly find myself unfulfilled. Purposeless. Drifting.
It feels like I have been transitioning from a place I knew, to a place I am unfamiliar with for the longest time and I’m just not arriving. There is this deep longing and expectation of finally going ah, this is the place I have been looking for. As if some familiar element will hit me in the face and I will realize that this is where I am meant to be. But that hasn’t happened and I am somewhat bored. Can it be?
Pipe down peanut gallery. It’s not a sin to be bored, it’s a message. One to be curious and welcoming about. I haven’t sat still long enough to really understand what lies beneath a place of boredom. I also, within myself, judge it quite harshly as it sounds like I live a thankless life – like I don’t quite fathom what miracle it is to take my next breath. I get it. I understand. But I can’t ignore that I feel like there’s no point and I don’t know where I am going anymore and now I don’t like it. I don’t.
I don’t think I like where I am at in my life at the moment. Wow, that felt so liberating to say out loud. And I am ok with not liking it but not doing something about it either. Coasting much.
I’m currently house and cat sitting for friends here in Knysna. Every time I’ve sat down to write this, said cat comes to cuddle. Types its own little story as it traipse across the keyboard. The Knysna Loerie calls and the sun is breaks through the heavy-looking-but-no-rain clouds. It’s quite the scene. If I don’t cuddle the cat it gets feisty. So I cuddle the cat. It was feisty the other night when I wanted to read instead of cuddle it. Lesson learnt. So I stop typing, take in where I am and try not force the story.
I realize that I am a doer, I have always earned my value. It’s a rather uncomfortable habit to unlearn. I have to do cool stuff all the time, that’s how one stays cool. But it’s also how burnout says howzit and gets feisty. So do the opposite. Sit and do nothing. Just enjoy the cup of tea in front of you and the fact that there are no pressing matters right this instant that needs your attention. If you want me to freak out, tell me to sit still. I’m a chronic over doer with burn out and no idea how to go about what on earth comes next. I lost my bag of tricks somewhere along the way and am all out of showmanship. Now I have a circus and some monkeys. Nice.
I joked a while back and called it an existential crisis. I think I’ve been in existential crisis my whole life. Never having really felt like I have arrived to live, although I have really lived but I’ve never really understood why we are here. Apparently we’ll never know and that’s just how it is. Yay! Talk about how well uncertainty is for a tweaked nervous system. Then you die. But guess what, you also don’t know when or how. So life is just one big unknown thing? Yes. Double yay. Sigh.
I certainly feel like we just do daily things to keep ourselves from standing still long enough to ask the hard questions. Wait, maybe that’s just me. But I find it inspiringly frustrating that we do these things like wash dishes, sweep the floor, go to work, buy stuff from a supermarket and more to keep ourselves busy from day until night. Was that the plan? It’s a weird plan. Whoever thought of that plan, can we converse please. I’m here now and I get that I must make the most of it but what am I meant to do here. Help.
Wake up. Meditate. Write. Drink tea. Start work. This happens to be my current schedule but consecutive consistency hasn’t been my strongest skill but I can if I want to. Good luck if I don’t want to. Mondays, I like Mondays. That’s usually the day I get so much done and things fall into place and I get really good results at adulting. But most of the time there’s only one day a week where I am absolutely crushing it. That’s disheartening. No matter how hard I have tried, the wheels come off the bus after Monday, then I just arb around looking like I adult good. That is one thing I do pretend to look good at, adulting. I have mastered the mask. Or I have mastered adulting it just doesn’t look like everyone else’s adulting. It’s all very confusing to me.
I don’t know what is and what isn’t anymore.
Do you know that I create to feel good about myself. It’s one of the only things I feel I have skills in that can carry me through everyday life. So I keep on returning to it. My life boat. But I am missing land and can see it in the distance. I desperately want to go but being out at sea has just become so comfortable and I’m not sure I’ll know what to do when I get there. I little bit like Little Mermaid going from a mermaid to be being human. Walking is hard some days. And using a fork to brush your hair is really normal.
Life says you can make up your own rules but there are certain rules that seem to be universal and if you want to be loved and belong you have to abide by those rules. Silly.
I have too much time on my hands.
I think I’m tired of doing but if I step off the treadmill now, it feels like chaos will follow. So I stay on the treadmill.
Can we go back to home phones and slow living please?
Leaving you with a quote from Margaret Atwood: “Art is long and life is brief and mortality looms”.
Sums it up for me. Life is a conundrum. It’s nothing and everything at the same time.
Bye