March, the Second (2)
This is a revision of a post I posted back in March. Both are from the same source. I am keeping both because different times tell us different things about ourselves.
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One day, we are all invited into this adult world that our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents have all been inhabiting for - it seems - their entire lives. But, instead of being adept, we are confused as we get sucked into this world where everything costs no-one nothing, but really costs everyone everything they've got left. A world where we are no longer compelled to do what we must, but whatever the hell we like - as long as we have enough success under our belts and enough finesse under our lips. A world where every moment we choose our own self-directed destiny. Where bills and weekends determine our days and penned-in schedules determine our lives. This world where we are so confoundedly busy all the time; where no-one knows why or where all of the time is going. A world that, now we're in it, seemed to forever have made sense to no-one, and still remains not to.
The result is a sort of drowning sensation. But I'm beginning to come-to. And it's making me come to some serious decisions - making me come to some dire conclusions.
In short, I don't have to live like this. This is not my resting place.
Things that, as a child, seemed so clichéd, so out-of-place are slowly and suddendly beginning to take shape: this is the time when patterns evolve, when we all get settled into the groove that will determine the rest of our lives.
Right now, we've got a motto we're defining, a pattern we're deciding, a ritual we're designing. We're standing at the start, ready to jump from our places - ready to begin. This is where our adult world gets its designation from. Because, now, we're the ones making the calls.
Our holidays. Our sisters and our brothers making up the aunts and the uncles that we thought had existed all along. It will be our traditions and our words and our lives the younger ones will remember as stone. It will be our past that is their history. It will be us that defines this adult world from here on out.
I recall this same feeling from before. It was frightening, though, and so I edged away from it - backed myself into reverse and stopped growing for four years. Then, I was sixteen and it was the Missouri summer heat that had set me on fire. I wasn't a child in the way I had been, and I felt it. I had seen a glimpse of the world through new eyes. But California cooled my senses and turned me into a pillar of salt just for looking. My eyes closed, and for the next four years I was scared and awkward again. And in four years, I went nowhere.
This year has been similar to that Missouri summer. Hard, pressing, different. But, like then, I knew it was coming. And from the heat and the humidity of life, my eyes are wide open. It has been one of those years, and our hearts are - finally - wide open.
So let's go. Let's get out there and test the world to see how badly we can fail. And when we do, let's start all over again. Because that is just what we humans do.
Let's get off the starting block.
Because from here, we are grown. And from here, we are growing.
-------
One day, we are all invited into this adult world that our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents have all been inhabiting for - it seems - their entire lives. But, instead of being adept, we are confused as we get sucked into this world where everything costs no-one nothing, but really costs everyone everything they've got left. A world where we are no longer compelled to do what we must, but whatever the hell we like - as long as we have enough success under our belts and enough finesse under our lips. A world where every moment we choose our own self-directed destiny. Where bills and weekends determine our days and penned-in schedules determine our lives. This world where we are so confoundedly busy all the time; where no-one knows why or where all of the time is going. A world that, now we're in it, seemed to forever have made sense to no-one, and still remains not to.
The result is a sort of drowning sensation. But I'm beginning to come-to. And it's making me come to some serious decisions - making me come to some dire conclusions.
In short, I don't have to live like this. This is not my resting place.
Things that, as a child, seemed so clichéd, so out-of-place are slowly and suddendly beginning to take shape: this is the time when patterns evolve, when we all get settled into the groove that will determine the rest of our lives.
Right now, we've got a motto we're defining, a pattern we're deciding, a ritual we're designing. We're standing at the start, ready to jump from our places - ready to begin. This is where our adult world gets its designation from. Because, now, we're the ones making the calls.
Our holidays. Our sisters and our brothers making up the aunts and the uncles that we thought had existed all along. It will be our traditions and our words and our lives the younger ones will remember as stone. It will be our past that is their history. It will be us that defines this adult world from here on out.
I recall this same feeling from before. It was frightening, though, and so I edged away from it - backed myself into reverse and stopped growing for four years. Then, I was sixteen and it was the Missouri summer heat that had set me on fire. I wasn't a child in the way I had been, and I felt it. I had seen a glimpse of the world through new eyes. But California cooled my senses and turned me into a pillar of salt just for looking. My eyes closed, and for the next four years I was scared and awkward again. And in four years, I went nowhere.
This year has been similar to that Missouri summer. Hard, pressing, different. But, like then, I knew it was coming. And from the heat and the humidity of life, my eyes are wide open. It has been one of those years, and our hearts are - finally - wide open.
So let's go. Let's get out there and test the world to see how badly we can fail. And when we do, let's start all over again. Because that is just what we humans do.
Let's get off the starting block.
Because from here, we are grown. And from here, we are growing.
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