The 1001st

Eight years and eight months (or 104 months) after I started this very blog, I achieved a milestone of 1000 posts. I was never really good at numbers – or getting too personal in a post – but sometimes statistics offer a perspective. It’s easy to spill your soul on paper because you don’t visualise all those people reading it. You only see yourself as the steering wheel guiding the pen that scribbles down the words you feel.

Like Barbara Kingsolver said: “Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer”.

And just like that, you make writing a habit, you go on with life and suddenly you realise that…well, life happens. Milestones come and go like a rising sun, and it is only when you stop to reflect on the time that has passed that you acknowledge the changes you’ve undergone and how your reality has altered.

This 1001st post coincides with a process of moving – in all senses and on all levels.

Moving on to a new neighbourhood, a new home, a new environment. Moving on to new work opportunities, levelling-up, moving forward in order to evolve.

It is said that after the grieving of loss or separation, moving is the third most stressful thing we endure. Because that too entails the breaking of ties. Beginning life anew is both difficult, but also exciting. It is a chance to start over, to rediscover the world, to open up new windows and doors both literally and metaphorically.

As always, though, things don’t always happen as smoothly and seamlessly as we plan. Some transitions don’t occur without conflict; in this Covid-19 era, the virus gets hold of a friend you relied on for help; bureaucracy makes the world spin much slower; and technocrats don’t seem to be able to communicate effectively. There are all sorts of challenges we need to cope with that test our patience more than anything.

But that’s how circumstances make us stronger. How they teach us to be bolder and more resilient.

That’s how we move on; how we persist to make things work; how we survive.

That’s how we live. And in keeping ourselves busy, we (instinctively) power through.

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It is said that the problem with the modern world is that we become too attached to things and give them more importance than we do to people. Or perhaps the problem is that we become too attached in general.

The truth is, we become attached to things and people in which and whom we seek to find ourselves. It is the memories we become attached to, the things we reminisce when looking at a thing, or when being with a person. It’s that feeling that revives inside of us when we are around them.

My laptop crashed suddenly yesterday evening. It only took a second to happen, but it changed everything. My laptop is both my work and my pleasure. So you can imagine there is a lifetime building on it every single day. It’s as if having a best friend in the form of an object. And it just…crashed, leaving a feeling of having ripped out a part of me.

It’s not the object itself we become so tightly bound to. It is everything it represents for us, all the things it got us through when there was no one else around, all the aspects of our character that we forged around it and through it, the hopes and dreams we invested in it, and all the moments it represents for us.

So in essence, it is not the things we are really attached to. It is that part of ourselves that we found through them.

The biggest appointment

Dear Diary,

John got upset with me again. He yelled and stormed out of the room. My John. The person who I thought would understand how I felt and why this was so important to me. The person who saw me spend nights and days without sleep, racing to beat sunrise in my attempt to please everyone and have everything done as best I could. The person who saw me forgo meals in order to finish some report or analysis. The one who picked me up when I collapsed for all of the above. I wish he (and so many others) would understand why it thus matters to me to be acknowledged, to be appreciated, to at least be recognized as important and not be taken as granted.

I am used to striving for excellence in everything I do, yet it seems that does not matter. I’m even being rejected for jobs because I’m overqualified. I know being a perfectionist is an ambivalent quality – but in the best of cases it means that you will always deliver the highest quality possible. Why is that not appreciated? All it takes is a simply heartfelt “thank you” every now and again.

And today, today I’m feeling ill inside. I feel left out of so many things. Even my life itself. It’s like high school all over. Because no matter what anyone says that never really stops. There are still those cliques, the mean girls, the jocks, and you trying to figure out where exactly you belong in all of this insanity.

I’ve been described as many things – good I hope. But lately I keep finding myself being considered the rebel, the reactionary, the non-conformist. The one who keeps yelling and gets irritate with a tick in the wrong place. It seems like nothing I say even gets understood, never mind acknowledged. And I am always the bad cop in every equation.

One thing I’ve realized out of all this, is that no matter how much you prepare yourself you are never truly ready for this. The biggest appointment in life is the day you realize that nothing is what you expected. Not even close to what you thought it would be. Miles away from what you’ve ever dreamt. It is then that disappointment hits you like a full-force tidal wave pounding on your wooden shack. And all you can do is scramble afloat for air and muster the courage to survive.

It is hard being the rebel in a status quo world. Many said it would be worth it. But no-one said life would be easy.

Love,

Anna

Also part of Daily Prompt: The Heat is On