Internal wars in places of erudition. Opsimaths and philomaths. Lovers and thinkers and fours versus fives. Conflicting citation styles and ways of remembering events. Past tense and present tense and tensions created by atoms stretched apart and drawn back together by restorative forces. The only thing to do now is cut the ties. You've got those puffy glassy eyes again. Like you just cut onions. Like the pollen is out. Or whatever fib you muster up to explain why you look like shit to people who would never ask but might be thinking it. You hide the fact that you only get four hours of sleep a night at most these days. Sleepwalking in corridors of self doubt. A strained push towards a lacklustre finish line. Towards a paper trophy that signifies you spent the money and the time to rightfully declare that you know what you claim to know. Leg cramps and inflamed lungs. Chewed fingernails. The surrounding skin peeled away. No other competitors in sight. Just out here besting yourself. A few proud spectators cheering you on. Quite the charade. You slip into worlds that feel more authentic. Melancholy tunes played on repeat, as if the songs are hearing you instead. Eyes locked on symphonies of stars at night, connecting constellations. Searching for more. Telltale signs of an anxious brain.
But in rare moments of peace and solitude, you let the sun warm your skin and you close your eyes and lift your head in gratitude for the blue sky you sit under. For all that you've been able to do and be. You feel thankful for the confusion and the weariness and the lost sense of purpose. As if you’re the quirky protagonist in a coming of age tale who simply bloomed late. You remember you had a ‘goal’ when you started all this, but you can’t recall what it was. Probably something idealistic and romantic. Something 'Joan of Arc-lite' sacrificial. Be the change. Be an estuary for the weak and the tired and the broken. Fiat lux. Spread it round.
In times of transition, you feel like a stranger in a strange land. You feel unknown to yourself. Maybe that’s a good thing. That means there’s still more to discover. One of your biggest fears is that you won't get to do all the things you want to do. That you won't realize your ‘full potential’. Or worse, that there’s no such thing. That we all arbitrarily perform these identities for no reason at all. But if you're continuously learning and growing, maybe your time is nowhere near up. Maybe you can play any role you want. Maybe you can write a masterpiece. Maybe you can be the architect just yet. Maybe you'll build something breathtaking, even if people don't understand it at all. Not everyone gets a pass inside these walls. Most people want the west coast contemporary. But you’ll always prefer the crumbling castle. You understand its secrets and its vantage points and its built-in defences. You hang your hair from the tower and let the good ones climb up. You could sleep a hundred years or more, but you’re stirred awake when life touches your lips. You run your hands along the ancient sandstone and see flashes of all the lives you could have lived if you had had the time. All the incarnations. And you know without a doubt that you'd still choose this one, because there's so much more to do...
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