eventually

waiting for something to change

Time spent waiting.

For something to happen.

Things will change, tides will shift in my favour, greetings will be more genuine, life will be fuller, there will be more reasons to laugh and less to cry.

All my life I've waited for it to get better. If he doesn’t reply today, he’ll reply tomorrow, if not tomorrow then day after. If not the day after, then when? Will I keep waiting or will I get over it eventually?

Waiting for what? Hoping for certainty, but the picture is unclear. What’s the secret to getting over something so mundane and unnecessary?

In a crowd of people, somebody will see me for who I am, point me out, a bright light shining on my face, flattering me to no end and scream “that’s who I want! That’s it! It’s her”.

When will I have what I want? When will living life with awe and appreciation begin?

All my life I've waited for it to happen. This is probably a passing phase, a lingering moment that will eventually pass. It will pass.¹ Soon enough, it will.

This job will end and better things will come. After school, I’ll be happy. Once I move out, I'll be content. Moving back home is what will make me happy, I'll feel peace. Moved back home and felt nothing. Graduated college and not much changed. Jobs came and went but I’m still stuck with me. The cycle never ends. Soon enough, I'll find real friends, relationships that last; it won’t be a climb where the horizon is blurry; it’ll come to me naturally, and I'll flourish. The search continues. How do you know when the going is getting good?

The flights that I take will get easier with each try, whether they be flights of fancy or pure impulsivity. That risky text message will have a pay-off. In the movie of my life, that’s the turning point, the inciting incident, starting what may be the beginning of a whirlwind romance where I’ll be swept off my feet and will end with my foot popping, in all its glory; or I’ll be left on a blue tick for the rest of my time. There’s a lot of dreaming: will it happen? What will I do if it doesn’t? Writing down my wants and desires will only do so much, eventually they must come true. And if they don’t?

Will my art get better? My writing more interesting? I want to do everything and be everything. I’d like to be pretty and smart, occupying both spaces of an impossible binary. Supplementing my wit with sensitivity that would impress the average person. Reading every book that exists while watching every movie ever made. My music taste is esoteric, that makes me cool. I have a large vocabulary and my friend called me smart. I’d like to be everything. I want to draw, paint, read, write, watch, listen, talk, produce, love, appreciate, observe, perceive. I want to do everything, but I do nothing.

But this is my life. This is as real as it gets. It does not exist in a vacuum, a strange system of networks, where each decision leads to a specific, unholy outcome. What if I turned left instead of right? How different would things be? Would I be stuck in a foreign country, alone and bereft or would I be more successful than I am right now, basking in the glory of warm friends and success? What could it be? However, this is my version, warts and all. This is real life. The waiting has to stop, eventually..

This year I felt chilly. A cold breeze blew through my mind, jogging up many memories of time spent, where I was smaller (in size and thought, and maybe in my own head), or where I made myself small, to fit somebody’s imagination. Squeeze yourself too hard and you cease to exist. Now I make my presence felt, I have no qualms with who I am and where I come from; I'm here because you invited me in, and I deserve to be here. I’m able to let these thoughts rise to the surface instead of turning the switch on them. I was guarded but I knew it, even then, I let people in. I made friends, fought with them and then forced my way into their lives again. Now we like each other. I let the light in. I vied for attention, I muscled my way through, making myself known, my face out there, my mind up for sale. I found a few buyers.

In the competition to be good, there comes a nagging feeling-when all of this is done, I’ll be big enough to write my own rules. Another eventually, another soon, another motion of life I have to ride. All it seems to be is riding waves and performing in tandem; everything’s a goal, a light I'll be waiting to see, a life I'm waiting to live. But this is my life. This is it. This is where I am. When will I learn?

When will I want what I have?

The warm foothills of this life are here to keep me safe, they protect me, then why am I so quick to renounce them? Jumping from pillar to post, no idea where I’m going, but I have to go somewhere. I have to get there. Otherwise what was all this for?

Maybe it just was. Maybe this is it. And the experience is all I'll get. Will that be ok? Will I survive?

Little stuck, now looking back. All the what ifs, the options, the other lives that could’ve been lived, stare right back at me. As I look around, the present slips through my fingers. I do not want something because I crave it too much, I want it because I should deserve it. Where’s the line between want and need? If I’m deserving then wanting shouldn’t feel this ugly, as if I’m begging, pleading, holding onto whatever’s left while they walk away. Decisions made and then taken back. Escaping from bad situations, placing myself in another one. Unsure of where this is going but maybe I’m just in it for the ride.

I’ve always wanted more. And have lived life in wanting. Always in search of softness, away from the thorns. Dreaming, of being elsewhere, with somebody new, embodying excitement, as well as feeling the pits and the highs. Imagining things to change, I wake up as somebody else the next morning, hoping for the sun to hit me harder in the morning, the rain to feel gentler on my skin, the bristles of my toothbrush rough and ragged, my own fingertips having a strange yet calming sensation. Something new, something exciting, something else.

To want and not get, to want and not have. A stranger to myself. I'm always obsessed, there’s no other option. Living in my own head, imagining what it would be like, completely forgetting what’s in front of me. In my fantasies, it’s rosy and lovely, I’m with somebody, I’m successful, with buckets of happiness and dinner parties. I’m able to vocalise exactly what I feel, not have it be a muddled piece of vomit. I’m able to stand on my own two feet, roots going deep into the ground, growing out of freshly fertile soil. In a comic jump cut to my life, this isn’t the reality. The deep rooted need to belong, to feel part of a union, to feel loved and wanted, still exists as a want, as a need, as a desire. The wants never stop, when shall they cease?

The wonders of being young, on a perilous journey to nowhere, maybe in the wrong place at the wrong time; only these things matter currently. Harsh feelings are felt while the softer ones exist in the cortex of my brain that isn’t developed yet. Some moments are to be unlocked but I’ve forgotten the passwords, the noises are in a language I don’t understand and the code to the correct emotions isn’t decrypted yet. One foot in the groove, another swimming in a vast ocean, unable to catch speed or move in motion, how does this work?

Constantly hoping for something else. Something good, something better. My voice falls on deaf ears, the ink in my journal dries up, there go my hopes and dreams. All the wishes are a to-do list, a monogrammed, never ending abyss decorated in pink and green flowers.

This is real life. It is what it is perhaps. Suck it up and deal. Wanting more is perfect in theory until it becomes an all-encapsulating desire that must be fulfilled in this instant, and if it isn’t, I will be going to bed unhappy, waking up a rotting mess, worse than the night before, crabby and grumpy; I'll be the crotchety old woman feeding pigeons in her spare time while cursing at the youths. But if I don't want to be that, do I have the power in me to change? Is life happening to me or am I doing anything for it?

This is it². This is what I get. A slow morning, moving around the house, opening windows, thinking about how I’m feeling. Checking in, describing the sensations in my mind, replying to the friends who thought of me, limiting my screen usage, picking up a book. My cat is bathing in the sun, I step out onto the balcony to say hello. This is my life. A routine one can’t beat. Thoughts meander, did I make the right decision? Was I supposed to be living this life? The what ifs begin to pour in. But this is me. This is real life. If I don't enjoy it then what’s the point?

Eventually it’ll work out in my favour. Eventually.

1. this phrase will forever have to be credited to Phoebe Waller-Bridge; for it is heartbreaking yet hopeful in just three words

2. I’m still not sure what it might mean, or what I imagine it as