I am the chair

It's no secret that the past few weeks have been really tough for me. Packing and moving are harrowing experiences under normal circumstances but when you add in the emotional symbolism involved in ending a ten year relationship, the whole thing just felt like an impossible situation to get through. I have tried really hard to be cognizant of my feelings during this time and not resort to self-destructive coping mechanisms but surprisingly, that's not so easy to just do, even with the best of intentions. So I have basically been struggling against myself, pulling people in closer and pushing them away, trying so hard to not have to deal with a moment where I would have to look myself in the eye and admit that this is really my life, I am all there is, and it is up to me to decide where I'm going to go from here.

There's a scene in the movie Contact where the engineers have built this chair into the pod "for safety" even though it was not part of the original plans. When Ellie is flying through space, the chair starts to vibrate violently and uncontrollably until it finally wrenches itself free of its connections and floats away peacefully because it was never supposed to be there. It's a bit of a clumsy metaphor for the idea of trusting and releasing control, but that scene keeps coming back to me so I'm going to go with it anyway. I realized this morning as I was waiting for the bus that I have been trying and trying and trying to engineer and force and manipulate my life to be a certain way over the past few weeks and what I really need to do is let go and make peace with the way things are.

There are wonderful things about living with a roommate and living in a whole new neighborhood and having vast stretches of unplanned alone time, but it's almost impossible to see those good things when all I can focus on is how my life should be this certain way because that's what I'm used to. I'm standing on the edge of this vast, incredible, scary freedom where I can go in any direction that interests me. I can be an athlete, I can be a freelance graphic designer, I can be a painter, I can run a marathon, I can take a bike tour through Provence, I can be genuinely happy and satisfied with the life I have. The future is brimming with possibility, but before I can do any of those things I have to release my hold on what I was and be willing to become something else. Really fucking scary.

Risk

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it tookto Blossom.

Anaïs Nin

Exactly. That day is today.