imagine Sisyphus pushing the rock and almost being at the top. after thousands of years, he can finally see the tip of the mountain. his hands are rough, his shoulders are familiar with pain but he just needs to push a little harder to get to the end.
but instead, he lets the rock go.
the rock crushes him and falls all the way back to the beginning. Sisyphus complains to the gods, but he knows he is capable of getting to the top. so after a while, he goes back. but then again, he intentionally lets go. he keeps letting the rock splatter him.
that is how i sometimes feel.
when you have ideas and dreams bigger than the world itself, and you know that you could make them happen, it can get scary. so when things become a little more complicated, when fear or shame gets involved, you let everything go.
then you complain. you go back to your old ways. eventually, you rebuild yourself again.
and that gives the impression that you are progressing, that you are making real changes in yourself. sometimes it is just an illusion.
in reality, all you are doing is proving to yourself that you know how to pick yourself back up. you are not actually moving further when things get complicated. you are not learning anything other than how to let go of your dreams and come back to them later.
and all that for what?
that was the question that came to me while i was doing hip-flexor yoga with Solange playing in the background. apparently, there are many things stuck in my hips that i refuse to admit to myself. physical pain, emotional pain, whatever. i was damn near doing a full split wondering what would have happened if Solange had tried yoga-ing it away.
but the realisation was there, unfortunately.
i am self-sabotaging.
and picking myself up isn’t necessarily progress if I am the one repeatedly throwing myself down. sometimes i am the one delaying my own success, then congratulating myself for surviving the delay.
that was painful to realise. beyond the physical pain, obviously.
my first instinct was to blame it on fear. but fear of what?
i fear being a bum more than i fear making money from my passion. i fear disappointing the people around me more than i fear expressing myself, wearing Jimmy Choo heels and giving back to my community. i can guarantee you that.
so what exactly am i scared of?
maybe this pattern comes from deep, unconscious things that i have not admitted to myself yet. maybe part of me thinks i am not good enough for what i want. maybe i refuse to face the possibility that i could really try and still be disappointed.
because what happens if i push that rock and realise i am not that special?
many people have pushed that rock. many people have had dreams. what if i try my hardest and it does not work? what if i succeed and it still does not make my life meaningful in the way i thought it would?
i feel like a hypocrite writing that because if a friend said this to me, i would tell them that their whole perspective is built on “ifs.” i would tell them that they could completely turn it around. i would tell them that trying could become the best thing they ever did for themselves.
but it is different when it is you.
there is something comforting about knowing you can mess up again and again and still get yourself back up. you can still stay somewhat on track. you can still say, “well, at least i came back.”
so i trap myself in this vicious cycle, trying to prove something to i do not even know who. maybe i am trying to prove that i am strong enough to survive anything, even myself.
i hope you are not doing the same.
but that is extremely easy for me to say, as if i am not going to fall into my own trap again. of course, now that i have identified the problem, i hope i can manage it. i hope i can stop myself before it gets too far. but i also know that the cycle is comforting. that is the worst part.
still, i get to choose.
thats the power that i hold in all these different scenarios is i get to be the do-er, because life is not that simple and fear is not something you can always reason with. but i do get to choose what i do when fear shows up. i get to choose whether i stay still, stumble back, or keep going.
that gives me a bit of peace of mind. i am not always in control of what happens to me, but i do not want to keep being the person who disappoints herself before anyone else gets the chance to.
at the end of the day, you go to sleep and you are alone with your cold sheets. you warm them up with your feet, and you warm up your cold thoughts with scenarios. you think about what you should have done, what you could do, and all the different versions of your life that might still be possible.
and in your most vulnerable moments, you are the one who is there with yourself.
i think i have confused struggle with proof that i care. if it hurts, if i have to come back from it, if i have to rebuild myself, then at least it feels like something important happened. however i do not need to hit the bottom of the mountain every time to deserve the view from somewhere higher. .
anyways, i am getting tired of being the reason i have to start over. so next time i get close to the top, i will not let go. or maybe i will fuck it, it’s my choice either way.