Oftentimes I sit in a daze, unsure of anything. I sit for hours, days. And yet nothing comes to me. There are no epiphanies, no moments of revelation. Simply, a vast landscape of white sweeps before me, a desolate and rolling mental scene.
This is not new. These persistent emotions, although a discomfort, have made themselves a companion to me. When they pat my shivering hand, I cannot escape the deception of their relief. Somehow, a warmth emanates from them. I am convinced of the virtues habits that I had vowed to not repeat, and find myself so easily slipping into the rut of corruption.
The days are pungent with the smells of burning quicksand, stagnation, procrastination, and self-harm. All of these.
I feel myself sway from one thing to the other, bouncing from one document to file. Unstable, unable to fight one battle at a time. They must all be won simultaneously, there is no time for tactics, no time for meditation. Just fighting invisible demons in my mind, the same ones I run to for comfort in the evenings when the sun is able to set. I tell myself that it is this time when I need my vices, when suddenly they are transformed from monsters, to loving creatures. That they contribute to my form and benefit my mind.
I ask myself, why. Why is it me with this mind, one unable to properly steer the quaking and wheezing ship? Why am I not a more skilled sailor?
I write this in confusion, but in fondness of it as well. The struggle is familiar to us all. Why do we succumb to these habits that not only take us away from creating better versions of ourselves, and push us towards happier futures, but further drag us down the same holes we had struggled with much effort to remove ourselves from.
I may never know. But I do feel that there is comfort in pain. And in the times where nothing is for sure, where the pandemic has fully encased the world, there are very few things that feel stable and joyful. Sometimes a dopamine hit is just what we need, a stable influx of our physical chemicals. Unfortunately getting it from the outside world means going outside, where we are encouraged not to embark out to.
When we can excuse ourselves from them, it is nice not to exist in our own worlds, and sometimes not feeling is the best feeling there is. But I’m at a point where escapism no longer satisfies but frustrates. Can it finally be the time where I can know exactly what I am, and not feel fear or consequence or embarrassment?
Nothing is promised. There need not be any, except the one we can give to ourselves. That no matter where we are in life, that when we breathe, we will be able to thank the oxygen that fills our lungs, and the blood that races through our bodies. For this moment, we are here. And that is what we have for certain.
