like it's a good idea.

At what point do you get to say, "I know it's not supposed to be easy" and convince the universe that you got the fucking message, loud and clear, and that it can relax, no need to beat it with a stick and a cane and a baseball bat with metal spikes on the end of it powered by a machine calculated to swing just as long as there was something around to swing at. 

Fine. I get it. I GET IT. 

And also. I know I don't deserve to say that. I know I'm entitled. And I haven't earned the right to feel that way. There has been nothing in my life besides everything I need. And love. And relentless opportunity. One after another after another after another. Luck bathed in luck dressed in luck swallowing luck whole like a giant snake finding the biggest dinosaur egg ever laid. I know I shouldn't, and yet there are so many moments. I do. And I feel so tired about it. And so desperate to figure it out, once and for all, and stop. Stop complaining. Stop searching. Stop feeling like I'll never really be the thing I think I should be because that shiny thing is hanging from a stick stuck out from my head just long enough to evade the furthest my fingertips will ever reach out to touch. 

How do you manage to get to a place where you feel like you can't live up to your self? How does that happen? How do you do such beautifull things that even you are proud of, excited by, elated to have in your world, that even you are terrified it will never happen again, and those big-giant-dreams you've been talking about so long will never happen because not only could you not live up to that thing, you barely even started it. "It's not fair to yourself to stop," you say. "You deserve that big beautifull dream," your inner monologue repeats over at nauseam. "If you stop, you're the only person you have to look at in the mirror. This will be your fault. You have choices and free will and not one impediment to making these things your reality." "What are you waiting for?" And on and on and on. The I don't-want-to-be's. The what-if-I-don'ts. The where-did-it-goes?

I thought at least, if nothing else, I'd finally figured out what how to get there. How to get back. How to be that creative consciousness I feel anxiously pacing around inside near my lungs but not in them so much as making up their own organ entirely, just sitting there tapping at me before bed or when I wake up or at any moment during the day, shouting up to me, back up to my throat, wondering when the fuck we're going to get back to work already. I can just barely respond and I feel like the little kid who was asked everyday if I'd practiced and if I hadn't I would feel like I failed and I let myself down and that it was my fault. "I could be," I think. But "I won't". Because "I didn't". 

But what the fuck is, "get there?" Self. What the fuck is that? Where is that? And why are you so impatient and hard and demanding that you would rather beat your self up in your now-moments wondering about that place instead of living in this one? There is no there, without here. I want to believe that. I want to feel that. I know it's true. But what I feel instead. Is conflicted. And confused. Generally these things. And frustrated. Perpetual frustration. 

I'm tired of doing things I'm proud of. I'm tired of returning over and over again to this place that makes me feel like I'll never add up. That even if I did it once, I'll never do it again. Whatever the fuck "it" is. 

I don't need perfect anymore. Thank you universe for getting that message through to me loud and clear. Clear like the wine glasses surely sitting in my sister's cabinets after she cleaned them so fiercely, one or two probably broke between the palms of her hands. 

But goals. Goals are another thing entirely. And they are oiled with pride, greasy and slippery and not wanting at all to be catched. When I got into grad school. I think that became this road for me. That was kinda already paved. And I knew a lot of things about what school was like already. And I knew that at the end, I would get what they said I would get. All I had to do, was walk. Ultimately, it turned out not to be paved with stone or black tar and I'm not sure I was wearing much on my feet. But there was a path there, and the trees were parted, the water was only so deep, and the moon was always full enough to keep a dim light out no matter what time of day it was. It was safe. Because even though the in between parts were uncertain, I knew what the end would be. I knew that I made an agreement to get that thing they said I would get. As long as I put the work it. I would get that thing they said I would get. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. 

I don't know what this other stuff is, outside of that. I'm no good without that thing I know I can agree to. Without knowing if I'll get that thing that I don't know that I want yet. Even when I know what I want. I'm not sure of how to get there. And that path is for sure as fuck. Not. Paved. 

I don't know if it's that I'm afraid of failure. 

I don't know. And I think that's worse. Not the part about not-knowing-if-it's-failure. But the not-knowing in general. The expectation that it should be some way, even though I have little to zero understanding of what that should-way even is. It's easy for me to look back and connect the dots. To make sense of all the experiences and see them for all they were and how much I needed every single one. But I can't do that looking into the future. And that scares the fuck out of me. 

What if this stagnant time is/was the beginning of never making work again? What if you forget everything you learned, and all of this becomes something you did instead of something you are? What if you're a fake? A lazy, complacent accepter? 

I worry about wasted time. I worry about being what I say I am. Following through. Living up to the expectations I put myself inside like a cocoon. Like it's a good idea.