003: Hurry Up And Wait
So I wanted to go back in time to something else I was writing back in 2022. It was an explanantion for my prolonged absence, and overall lack of participation nearly everywhere online. To put it simply, I never expected to see 2023. When my siblings passed away a year, a month, and a day apart…I started feeling like my family was cursed and that I would be the next to go. I wasn’t sure if there was a possible pattern or this was merely a cruel coincidence. My sister passed on the 30th of October. My brother passed on the 29th of November. So it stands to reason in my troubled mind, that the 28th of December would be the date of my grand closing.
So I’d been afraid for the past year. Afraid that nothing I do will matter by the end of December. Afraid to allow myself to enjoy any of the positive outcomes I was experiencing. So I quietly resigned myself to expecting the worse since I couldn’t see past the fearful fog clouding my mind. This led to me halting projects I was working on and removing a lot of things from my life. I usually tend to go all “scorched earth” in certain situations, but something made me stop short of fully committing to throwing everything away. Maybe there was still a glimmer of hope left inside me, or maybe I was still strong enough to resist the almost lustful temptation of giving up.
I woke up on December 28th, 2022 in a state of confusion. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief for being able to see another day, but I reminded myself that I still have to make it to midnight. So I wake up again the next four days, and find myself alive on New Year’s Day. Maybe it was time to put my mind to rest. I could no longer move the morbid goalposts and try to pinpoint when my time would come. Just like with everyone else, it’ll happen when it happens. And despite being thankful for still being alive, making it past the 28th and into 2023 was a bittersweet feeling for me. Because at some point I made peace with the idea of getting to see my siblings again in the afterlife, and was honestly looking forward to it happening so soon. Since then, I’ve just continued to hold on to the idea that I’ll see them again down the road.
Now that I’m no longer shackled by this fear and no longer yearning to give up, I think it’s time to try living life to the best of my ability and using my time as wisely as I can. Because I'm tired of having my momentum halted, and being culpable in having rugs pulled out from under me. Relevant setbacks include being "unhoused" and living in my car, to having two of my toes amputated. So it's safe to say that both 2023 and 2024 came with their fair share of lowlights. I'm just ready to get back on track and produce results.