I feel the need to change my life. I am in the process of changing, but still I feel like there is something else for me to do, something else out there. Mostly I have been thinking of a move. A BIG move. A move that includes an address somewhere in Brooklyn or the Upper West Side and involves a tiny studio apartment that I pay too much for and a minimalist existence where I learn to live with less than I have. A move that requries more bravery and more energy than I feel I possess at the present time. It is a conundrum...The dilema is this...I am seduced by safety. I am seduced into thinking that a life here wouldn't be so bad, that you don't have to leave the state you grew up in, that you have to stay close to your family and friends and knitting circles, that you need cars and furniture and space and sky in order to be happy. I am afraid friends. I am afraid to leave. I am afraid to try. I am afraid that in deciding to stay I am telling, perhaps, my life's biggest lie...that this life, my life, as it is, is enough. Even as I say it, I am afraid it isn't true.
Don't be fooled, I have a good life. I am blessed and happy. I am surrounded by amazing people who love and listen, who are good and beautiful. I have no reason to complain or want. I have no reason to leave or wonder. But I do. This is the truth.
I have been thinking about a poem I wrote in college. Walking to class one day, I passed the bell tower where a large swarm of birds were flying in and around the stone window openings. They were sparrows and they all flew in a time and rhythm that was constant and beautiful. (Remember my love of birds? They are as calming as ocean waves). That day one sparrow flew away from the group. She flew high and wide, circling the tower and landing on the stone. She was close to the group, but at the same time obviously seperate. It was her seperateness that I noticed, her seperateness that made her beauty. I wrote a poem about it and it was largely a metaphor. It is how I felt my whole life.
I am left wondering who to be--safe or seperate, grounded or flying, shadow or sparrow, or is there a way to be both?
That is a conundrum. It sounds incredibly basic: but you'll never know if "out there" is right for you unless you try it. And here's the thing about living in a cramped, overpriced apartment in the city: if you hate it and want to come home, you can. Nobody says you have to stay there. Success happens the moment you take a risk. Listen to that voice that says flee.
ReplyDeleteBut this is coming from someone deeply tied to her own sense of safety. I like to visit big places, but I always prefer to come home. My nest, my comfort zone, my familiarity. I cull peace from these things.
This was beautifully written, by the way.
I agree: this is lovely.
ReplyDeleteMay I suggest that you examine your motivation? Is it change for the sake of change, because you feel you need to different, somehow, than who you are? Or is it change because you need it; change because the universe demands it?
The Rookie is right, however: change doesn't need to be permanent. Perhaps you need to try being the sparrow...