Stuck in a Rut, On Top of a Mountain
I feel like I'm trapped in limbo, gliding along but not really going anywhere and pretty much aimless. It's a little suffocating, not having any meaningful goals or feeling truly synced in with the rest of the world. On some days, it's nice to be able to sit back and just look at stuff, all the things you didn't have time to check out, all the flowers you didn't have time to smell.
I'm in a good spot. I should be grateful. I should stop using the word "should", especially when it applies to me. There are people whose entire goal in life is to reach the point where I am at, so why can't I relax and just go with it? I know why, because I'm me. And because I'm me, because I'm a person so used to fighting my way out of the deepest and darkest of pits from which there is usually no form of redemption, when I'm in this good place, hell, this great place, it's hard not to jump off a cliff. It's hard not to seek out a depth, not to dig oneself a nightmare, just to give myself something to do, something to strive elegantly and furiously and gloriously against, pitting myself versus the impossible mountain and veering towards the top, only to find myself once again torn up, crushed and broken, somewhere on this nice plateau about two-thirds of the way up.
It's a good spot. It's a safe spot. It's the spot where broken people rest, where people who overreach themselves can mend their wounds. It's still frustratingly far from the summit, well below the snowline, but high enough in altitude that every step up from here is going to be dearly paid for, and once you hit ice you'd better have the equipment or you're dead and done. Usually, only the rich reach the top, those with the extra to squander on fancy rigs. If they aren't rich themselves, they have someone rich backing them. Or maybe they have oodles of social capital, another kind of wealth.
It's high enough that if you take a plunging leap you have a long, long way to fall. If you look over the edge you can see just how far down it is, and your voice echoes when you call out to folks climbing up. They don't believe you were ever down where they are; sometimes, you don't believe it either. It must have been some other you, some primordial descendent of you. The person you are now must have gone through an evolution and you wonder where exactly it was you emerged from your chrysalis. Or maybe you never did. Maybe you are a ghost of you, maybe instead of metamorphosis something wild and alive inside you died, and what reached up high to this point is just a shadow of you. Maybe you are no more, who are you now?
Who is this aimless, shapeless wanderer, this sniffer of flowers and scents and secrets without meaning? Is there a purpose to being, to realizing all these things, if we can't shape and move and enervate them with our wants and aspirations? Who am I? Who do I want to be?
And can I escape this danger, this plunging recklessness, this need to cast myself down if only to create the illusion of motion, however momentary, however damaging? I am a heart, I am a human soul; this fire is not a yo-yo. I can't seem to stop hurting myself, because the destruction feels like freedom and the return feels like redemption, at least until I find myself back here, having circled back to the same point on my return.
I must trust in spirals. I must create this, my forward motion, to always trust that I can inch forward. I just wish I could remember which direction was up.
I'm in a good spot. I should be grateful. I should stop using the word "should", especially when it applies to me. There are people whose entire goal in life is to reach the point where I am at, so why can't I relax and just go with it? I know why, because I'm me. And because I'm me, because I'm a person so used to fighting my way out of the deepest and darkest of pits from which there is usually no form of redemption, when I'm in this good place, hell, this great place, it's hard not to jump off a cliff. It's hard not to seek out a depth, not to dig oneself a nightmare, just to give myself something to do, something to strive elegantly and furiously and gloriously against, pitting myself versus the impossible mountain and veering towards the top, only to find myself once again torn up, crushed and broken, somewhere on this nice plateau about two-thirds of the way up.
It's a good spot. It's a safe spot. It's the spot where broken people rest, where people who overreach themselves can mend their wounds. It's still frustratingly far from the summit, well below the snowline, but high enough in altitude that every step up from here is going to be dearly paid for, and once you hit ice you'd better have the equipment or you're dead and done. Usually, only the rich reach the top, those with the extra to squander on fancy rigs. If they aren't rich themselves, they have someone rich backing them. Or maybe they have oodles of social capital, another kind of wealth.
It's high enough that if you take a plunging leap you have a long, long way to fall. If you look over the edge you can see just how far down it is, and your voice echoes when you call out to folks climbing up. They don't believe you were ever down where they are; sometimes, you don't believe it either. It must have been some other you, some primordial descendent of you. The person you are now must have gone through an evolution and you wonder where exactly it was you emerged from your chrysalis. Or maybe you never did. Maybe you are a ghost of you, maybe instead of metamorphosis something wild and alive inside you died, and what reached up high to this point is just a shadow of you. Maybe you are no more, who are you now?
Who is this aimless, shapeless wanderer, this sniffer of flowers and scents and secrets without meaning? Is there a purpose to being, to realizing all these things, if we can't shape and move and enervate them with our wants and aspirations? Who am I? Who do I want to be?
And can I escape this danger, this plunging recklessness, this need to cast myself down if only to create the illusion of motion, however momentary, however damaging? I am a heart, I am a human soul; this fire is not a yo-yo. I can't seem to stop hurting myself, because the destruction feels like freedom and the return feels like redemption, at least until I find myself back here, having circled back to the same point on my return.
I must trust in spirals. I must create this, my forward motion, to always trust that I can inch forward. I just wish I could remember which direction was up.