Whose Life Is This?

my life doesn't feel like my own.

it's a funny thing to wake up in the morning, feel around in the darkness with my fingertips, trying to find orientation from the safety of my bed, walk over to the mirror, flick on the lights and see nothing. not literally of course. there i stand, looking back at myself, wiping the crust from my eye corners and staring down a shell. a big ball of empty housed by a brown body prepped for a daily routine of busywork, and a wandering mind, brimming with problems both real and imagined, blocking a purpose.
 
what am i doing? why am i doing this? wordlessly, the refrain haunts me as i fight morning fatigue, standing soapy under running warm water, fixing eggs and tea, slipping on one shoe then the other, setting foot outside, already looking forward to when that same foot will step back inside the house at the end of the day, and my bed's call will be answered. repeat.

i am 28. i am 28 and lost. i am 28 and lost and living like I have to be tethered to something solid, definite. like i should have this thing figured out. this life thing, to where it doesn't feel like i'm simply clocking in and clocking out. i am alive, technically, but existing sounds more true. my organs are working soundly enough. so are my limbs. so why isn't my mind? why isn't my heart? i'm coasting without an inkling of a love for anything, really. and coming from a girl who once had so much warmth within her, love for the simplest things, an imagination that ran wild, it's a scary contrast.
 
i am a woman who plans aggressively. it is something that satiates me. order comforts me. measurable foresight reassures me. but day by day, i'm learning that routine is truly the worst thing for me. it is kryptonite. days pass emptily because they are all anticipated, filled with nothing i truly look forward to but that i "have" to do to stay on a logical, straight and narrow path. to just get what needs to get done, done. i fight it and fight it and fight it, sometimes to the point of professional demise. it is a misery i cannot articulate, that i have not yet figured how to escape. no one gets it. why mess a "good" thing up?

on the outside, nothing is broken. "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," they say. things look good. in working order. 1+1=2. cool things happen from time to time. but inside, i am screaming and no one can hear me. it's my fault, though; i am my own muzzle. i understand the optics. despite the visceral torment of stagnancy, i am walking in circles and everyone is saying good job. symmetry looks amazing from the outside, right? but i just want to run and color and laugh and love and dream and fly and explore the depths of myself and never look back to that circuitous cage i call my current life. i want to find a way to sustain that, but it's 2018 and it's hard. impractical, illogical. certain to lead to more sad before happy shows up at all, tardy as fcuk to the party. but ripping away from all that is sound and right is becoming more and more of a necessity. a step closer to mental salvation.
i want not to be applauded for mediocrity, but applauded for curiosity, creativity, vision. dishing out soul food. walking in my truth. living like Matthew 5:14-16.

i want to be left breathless from thrill and risk, unlike the sideline-bound spectator that i am.

i want to live where there is green in abundance and the softness of soil and sand, not the concrete gray that greets me day in and day out, matching the hardness of those who walk alongside me, lost too. unable to change things. or unwilling. or unsure.

i want the freedom to get lost in my own mind, and obey whatever urges to write, paint, photograph, create in any way, come to me without restrictions of time or space or occupation.

i want to drown in joy, almost. be so overwhelmed that this happiness is mine and mine alone, and that i can share it if i want to.
 
i want to feel the burn in my palms from the fire in my eyes as i approach each day, ready to embrace the stories—both my own and those bestowed upon me by strangers—tucked away in each one. behind my low lids are unpolished stones, cold and fixed and uninspired. what will it take to finally open them? see who i am as who i can be, will be.

i need things to tell my children, if i have them. true experiences. i want the life i'm living to be the stuff of lore. to be full, to be real, and to be mine. Mine. Mine.

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