If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward.
So, I’ve moved away from the hometown.
What now?
I do relish in the breadth of opportunity laying at my feet. It feels as though my “real life” has just begun.
Like our ancestors discovering bronze-working, I feel as though a new dawn has broken and the path before me is bright.
With that said, new opportunity means a new set of anxiety and new problems to face and overcome.
I have this overwhelming sense of loneliness surrounding me, my prior reliability on previously built relationships boosting my charismatic output has been ripped out from under me.
In an attempt to quell that loneliness, I’ve rekindled old friendships, which – though extremely rewarding – is not an appropriate response to this newfound issue.
I’m a big people person; in my adult life, it’s been one of my greatest strengths. So I’m sure with the passage of time this loneliness will sort itself out. But no amount of faith in the future can calm the uneasiness of the present.
I’m unemployed. Companion-less. The clock ticks and the pressure to grow rises. I find myself uncertain as to whether or not I can meet my own standards.
But God, that same uneasiness is exactly what I’ve been craving.
The comfortability of a hometown is the same thing limiting personal growth and potential.
I’m no longer invested in the gossip of bar-flies, instead I feel a great deal of pity. Arrogant as it may be, I look back on some people trapped helplessly by their own deeds, to remain imprisoned by small-town life furthermore – I look back in pity.
I’m extremely grateful I made it out.
But,
What now?
I did the big thing. My main goal for years. I got up and did it.
As it stands, I’m big-picture aimless. Obviously I have needs and wants to fulfill over the coming months, but now that my shop has left the harbour, I don’t know what course to set to.
I’m sure the path to self-fulfillment will reveal itself, waves of life ushering me towards a new goal, but in the meantime…
I almost feel as stuck as I was in Hamilton.
Oscar Wilde’s writings on the ‘not-knowing-what-to-do’ element of youth have brought me some solace. In a way, I am more the master of my own domain than I have ever been. The not-knowing is a gift. A blank canvas. An empty page. Itching to be filled with content.
At this point, though, I’m all itch and no scratch.
I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
Enigmatic Thoughts 