Sunshine and Musings

I thought I would carry out an extensive thought-dump today. I debated how to write this, if I would write this, where I would write it – Phone? Laptop? Good old-fashioned paper? Blog-form? Or private journaling? I never get very far whichever form I use. Somehow the page can't quite always bear what I'm trying to say, or I just do not have to strength to be so honest and open. Or maybe I just stop giving a shit once the emotion has passed, so the moment to write passes with it. But if I stopped giving a shit, then why am I constantly haunted? Why don't I just let go?

I write to be read, not to let go. To let go. I wonder what that feels like. To be completely honest, I do not think I want to let go, to be free. Because to let go means letting go of the things that push me forward while holding me back. How can I remove that whole part of me? How am I supposed to detach it and not get lost? I write to entertain, so I rarely say what I think yet often bare it all for everyone to see. Often the choice of what is seen is not dependent on what I show, but on what people choose to see.

I write cryptically, but I am always hoping that someone reads between the lines. Perhaps that is why I write at all. But when has being deliberately evasive ever worked for anybody? There is always a level of opacity even in solitude. Of course, there is opacity now. I am being deliberately evasive because I do not want to let myself write the real thing. Ironic since my purpose over the last three years has been to uncover what has remained skilfully hidden. Perhaps hidden in plain sight but hidden from the cursory glance. As I write this, I am painfully aware of performing once again. Calculating each word, carefully constructing each sentence, of being inauthentic. What is that I am trying to achieve? For whom am I doing this? What am I doing? And so, the chain of never-ending questions goes on.

There is a plant that sits in my room. A birthday gift from several years ago. I confess that I've never been much a plant-enthusiast, but it's something that I treasure. The plant goes through waves of life and deadness, a natural process. For some time now, its petals have dried and shrivelled, the leaves growing crisp and crumbling at the lightest touch. I stopped watering it and altogether ignored basic maintenance. I watched it dry up, knowing that I should take care of it before it died. But I did not for a long time, I just watched it.

Despite my negligence, it still continued to grow in places. It sprouted into a beautiful yellow. Yet, I could still see patches where the picture was not so pretty. I shifted the position of the pot so that I did not have to look at the dead parts interspersed with the blossoms. A temporary fix for a long-term problem. A bad choice. But what did it matter if, on the surface, all was fine? I just had to be fine and it really all would be. An incredibly moronic statement you might think because that is never sustainable.

I have long forgotten how to water myself. I have chosen not to, and I do not know why. I have tried to paper over the cracks, but I have very little experience in DIY. How exactly does one repair years of neglect anyway? It is not a simple fix nor is it easy, but a necessary one. I have learnt that the hard way this year. I have managed to achieve something quite remarkable, but I cannot let myself feel content. I keep asking if this might not just be another rose-tinted façade. When will it shatter? Will I be the one to destroy it? What will happen when it does? Will I ever be able to rebuild? Sometimes I think I am hoping that it shatters because I believe with such conviction that it will. It would be a waste of space and time otherwise, and I have dedicated years to the project at hand.

So, you see, there is no simple fix. Only suffocating questions with no answers. Even those answers that I have provide no comfort because I choose not to believe in them. I am scared of being disappointed by the real answer. I have found my answers, and the stories that accompany them, are what keep me going. They push me, instil a drive to do better and be better. But they come at an incredible cost, one that has proved too damaging for too long now. Sometimes they are but mere stories and it is time that I learnt to see them for what truly are.