thesteele

If I don't get some encouraging news soon, I'm afraid of what will happen to my spirits. I always thought of myself as steadfast, resilient, and impervious to criticism. I always thought my satisfaction came from within. But after two years of putting myself out there over and over again in a new city, I've received little more than a pat on the back. I worry that each day I continue to feel like this it will become harder and harder to throw myself into new ventures with the naive passion that resulted in my proudest moments of the now increasingly distant past. I feel a haziness overtaking - like being slowly submerged in water. Everything feels more constricted. When things are still I can hear my heart beating against my ribcage like it wants out of my body and into someone who knows what they're doing. I feel like parts of me are mutinying against whatever/whoever is in charge. I keep telling myself it will pass. But it just transforms into a new version of itself. It's a virus. It's taking over. What's the point of swimming if every time you come up for breath you just end up slamming your head back down in the water again for the next stroke. It's no way to live. It's unsustainable. Because who knows if you'll ever make it to shore anyway? Is it better to tread water? Is that what I'm afraid of? The possibility of an eternity of unchanged submersion in a liquid life that doesn't support me in who I am and my only choice is to kick and kick and kick just to keep a breath in my lungs. That's no kind of life. But how does one build a boat when he needs both hands to stay afloat?

My god, enough with the water analogies.





. . . maybe I'll take smoking up again.