Change

An old post I wrote in 2019 but finally publishing in 2020 (September). Only in hindsight can we begin to understand ourselves. Below were my thoughts during trip back to LA for a long awaited Disney Cruise with my family. I happened to pass by my elementary school which invoked these feelings. This was also a couple months before my Masters graduation...I found myself in an uninspired, mental rut and guilty that I didn't learn anything. The weight culminated across 3 years, never really giving myself a breather or reflecting--and finally word vomiting my feelings. I lived with such a singular fixation on life milestones but once I achieved it, I never felt elated. The same feeling when I was accepted into my graduate programs, and now reliving as I neared graduation. Perhaps its the dread that in my list of milestones, there was only one left, and that was moving abroad. Then I had nothing else I cared for. Also hanging over my head was the ultimate question: Who am I really doing this for? In a panic, I felt compelled to add to my list, a Plan B, to further solidify moving abroad / to appear outwardly (and convince myself inwardly) that I had an ounce of internal motivation. This took form in being willing to risk a conservative and more socially acceptable path to working abroad. There's some unwritten social expectations that when you near your 30s, you're suppose to start thinking about settling down--saving money, buying a home, stable income, etc. Growing up, society impressed on us that girls should like pink, so in retaliation, I declared I liked black but honestly, I had no color preference. I guess, my impulses have never changed, because deep down I think I made a decision to attempt Plan B for the sake of going against the grain rather than because I truly wanted Plan B. I think at the end of the day, the human condition, can be subject to change but also doesn't change. Perhaps this is what it means to die to ourselves daily.

I drove down a familiar road, a road I used to frequent as a passenger. Other than a recent coat of paint, a brighter blue and yellow than I remember, not much has changed. The chain-linked fences where we tied ribbons of solidarity, the grass mound where we adorned our heads with flower crowns, the slanted tethered-ball pole where children lined up for recess, the faded bungalows where I spent 6th grade, the jungle gym where I fell and scarred my face. Not much has changed. I wonder, at what point did I change? From being carefree and confident that my potential was limitless, I could be whatever I desired and imagined to where I am now, two decades years later, driving down this road, anxious and self-doubtful, defeated by an inner demon of self-inferiority complex, self-focused, and uninspired. Did I make a wrong turn somewhere? Am I driving in circles? If it is a dead end, may I reverse? 

 

Damien Rice · Cannonball