Tag: unknown

All of Us Dreamers

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Picture: Drawn/made by me. 

I can be a dreamer. Other times I can be a pessimistic realistic. I seem to jump wildly between the two, not trusting if I am worthy enough for at least some of my short term dreams to come true. I don’t know if I’m a dreamer anymore. I don’t know if I’m a realist or a disgruntled dreamer who has spent too much time on the ground.

I can’t seem to find a happy medium.

I’m either hellbent towards every step of my plan, convinced that everything will work and everything will come true. Or I am convinced that nothing will come true and there isn’t much point in dreaming for things that will only disappoint you.

I want a horse (or pony) one day. No one believes me that it’ll happen. They just smile while secretly snickering how much of a dreamer I am.  How I will get burned for flying too close to the sun.  So I back off, unsure if it is my business to have such aspirations. My mom told me that it wasn’t to happen. As did my grandma. And my dad told me that dream-chasing is exhausting and something you won’t have time to enjoy once you have it, hinting that it’s not worth it.

Dressage. That’s what I want to do (admittedly, since I’m not much of a jumper). But every time I speak of it, everyone tells me it isn’t possible. That it’s far too outside my class. That’s it’s too expensive – which it is true. I’m a once a week rider stagnating on school horses – and really, I can’t even afford that I don’t ride enough and I don’t have access to the right horses.  I need to get off school horses first and ride more. But I don’t know if that can happen anytime soon.  So I back off, convinced that those are dreams that will not happen, that will just wither and die. For jumping, I need a Dory (a horse that is fairly slow and that I’m mysteriously not scared with over fences).

Okay, so apparently dressage is impossible and I’m too neurotic to jump most horses. What about trail riding? I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t know if there’s brave, not-spooky horse for me out there (sand pile of doom….), not close to real trails (and not sure of places close to trails), and I don’t have friends to ride with me. I can’t make friends to ride with me either.  I’m not even sure what I want anymore.

I am terrified that I’ll just fly into the sun again. It’s happened before – I once thought horses will be something I was good at, that I’ll have some sort of belonging. But that didn’t happen. Not quite. 11 years later and I’m trotting around on beginner-suitable school horses still. Occasionally we attempt circles or go sideways.  I am madly infuriated that it seems that anyone that has been riding weekly for about a year becomes more advanced than I am….or more, much more in some cases. I’m not good with handling horses either so that argument is out.

There has been times when I thought about giving it up. That maybe nothing is worth it because it will not come true and that I suck anyway. That it isn’t today. If tomorrow never came, will it be worth it? I don’t know. I can’t seem to think in the frame of today. It’s always tomorrow, tomorrow.

Because I don’t like it here. I feel confined in my current space. My current place. I think back to those winged horses and the castles in the sky and wish I could go there. Away from here.

Sometimes I’m a pessimist. afraid of disappointment. Afraid of everything not coming true, not working out. Beleaguered with the harsh world of reality of the world.

But at heart, I am a restless dreamer.

I’m just too afraid to truly believe so I make sure it is wrapped in a cloak of “realistic pessimism”. I am not sure what I should be believing anymore. I don’t know what’s going to happen. There are too many changes at once.

I did keep riding – although it was largely due to my instructor in some ways.  So I did bail out of jumping but I still ride. But now everything is changing. Everything is changing. I’m also almost out of school for the first time and I feel like I’m being sucked into a void. My dreams feel like insufficient crazy notions that may never come true.  And I’m not sure what to believe anymore as reality seems to shift.

I am confined in my current space, still looking for greener pastures….or castles in the sky.

Or purple pegasus ponies. There’s a reason why I like that kind of imagery – it takes you back to a place, where everything is still possible. Unlike this world, in which sometimes everything seems impossible.

Paper Purple Peggy

On the Edge of the Unknown

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I couldn’t find an appropriate photo for this post (and don’t have enough inspiration to take one at the moment).

But yeah, I may have been more annoying than usual. I will admit that.

Lately, I’ve been edgy, impatient, more anxious then usual. I have a desire for instantaneous answers. As if I’m trying to secure some sort of certainty, trying desperately to tie peices of what I know to the trees with the prospecting hurricane of change.

This is me on the edge of the unknown. Filled with uncertainty, it feels like the end, even though people may assure me it’s a new beginning (although they actually haven’t thus far). I’m not sure. I don’t like change and someone has unleashed a hurricane on me. Oh I knew it was coming but didn’t think it’ll come this fast. I’m not longer quite sure who I am or what I’m good at or what I want. Everything feels impossible and so far away. As for me, I feel incapable and unwanted.

I feel so out of touch with everything and everyone. Most of my family seem to be on a planet far from my own. They don’t understand me or what I do or what I want to do. I feel so disconnected to them yet reliant. It’s not a good combo. I don’t really have friends. I have made zero friends in high school (maybe some loose acquaintances through) and I have certainly made zero friends in post secondary. While people talk about  the great social lives of high school and college/university, it can also be extremely isolating for someone with little to no social skills. I had more of a social life in elementary school.  By high school, my social life had died.  Now, I’m used to it being dead as I can’t imagine it any other way. If it’s activities where you make friends – well, I failed at that too (although I guess I made some loose acquaintances). Keep in mind that my loose acquaintance is very, very, very loose. It’s someone that I’ll know and the person will know me and I may exchange a few words (possibly a conversation but not required) but that it is. It is very, very, very loose, superficial but it’s at least a step up from pure alienation (I don’t know you and you don’t know me and we’ll all just ignore each other) which pretty much sums up my undergrad career.

I’m not sure about the horse thing, having attempting a sport that is way out of my league and class although maybe I just need to get a different side of it. It’s certainly not about the ribbons (I way prefer to ride more than show right now). There has been many disappointments in the realm, but I still love the feel of the horse underneath me (not on top, though I’ve been there too – avoid if possible) and the reaction when I find the “funny button” like a scratchy spot on the wither or wiggle of the muzzle (I’m not describing that well but it was so much fun) and the furry muzzles under my fingers (and on my face…yes, some bite…yes I generally know when they are going to bite). I’ve mostly given up big fantasies of showing, at least so I’ve gotten a little closer to earth in that way. I know I’ll never be an amazing rider or horse whisperer and my delusions of doing seem so mind-bogglingly naive .

I’m not naive anymore. I don’t want dreams to come crashing down again  or the flicker to gently peter out to the point that I shouldn’t care anymore (it doesn’t mean I don’t though). I had enough of that. The world is now a cynic’s world. The idealism of the future  – not just for me but the world as well has now faded.

But I don’t know how much longer it would be before everything will begin to unravel. When it would be clear that some things are dreams for another lifetime just like my family have hinted.  When everything falls apart, collapsing into a rubble of unfulfillable dreams.

Everything is spinning around, each piece of the wheel is threatening to break.

I’m at the edge of the unknown and I want to scream and cry and disappear (perhaps a wormhole will come…). There is too much happening. I want answers. I want a inkling of the known. I am lost and confused. I am also freaking out.

I don’t know where I am. I am wandering the deserted, dead landscape alone. I watch childhood innocence and idealistic dreams begin to smoke, desperately hoping it won’t alight. But the world is dark, cold. Everything is on the horizon. This is the event horizon. There is no going back. The days childhood have long past, even though I still essentially live like a teenager (that doesn’t mean I want to though but I don’t know any other way  and I can’t deal with it now with so many other unknown factors at the moment). But the bubble between youth and adulthood is about to be broken.

Somebody, please find me and take me back to the known. Or at least take me by the hand through the unknown.

I am terrified. (And edgy, anxious and about to freak out sooner than usual).

The Void

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The void is overbearing, looming ahead of me. I don’t know what to do. It is ever-approaching and I feel utterly unprepared for what is to come ahead. Whatever it is.

I started my last semester this week. It’s a mixture of relief – the ending of the draining, droning rhythm of school. You go to lecture. You read. You listen. You study. You write. Then you wonder about your grade.  And of course, leaping from one panicked deadline to another. But all and all, it’s familiar.  That fact, for the moment is the most important. Stagnancy is easy to come by because it’s hidden under the guise of familiarity.

But I don’t know what’s going to happen now. Everything I knew, is poised to fall apart, unravel from the frayed ends. I’m not completely sure what’s going to happen with the horse thing which is unrelated, but still falls within the same time period. The period of upheaval  disorientation and panic. Everything wants to unravel, sinking deep into the void of the unknown.

Graduating university is supposed to be good. It’s supposed to be the start of freedom. Somehow, you’re supposed to come out with friends from the education process but I have never been able to do that. Not even close. It’s supposed to be a time when you’re reaching your next step, going onto bigger and better things.

But it’s not. I feel trapped, desperately banging on the walls of the life, the world that I don’t feel that I belong. While I was always alone, now I’m really alone, with no one able to offer me any sort of knowledge of the future. I don’t have friends to chat with. I don’t know anyone who understands. No one seems to want to work with me. I seem to have direction, but no way to get there. Increasingly, I’m not sure if I’ll ever get there.

How do you know if you’re hovering or simply falling at a steady rate but never hitting the ground? How do you know you’re riding the currents or near the cusp of drowning? How do you if this is the end or the beginning? How do you know where you’re headed if all you can see is absolutely nothing?

I don’t know what’s in the void, for the good or bad. But all I know that’s incredibly dark here. And there’s no one but me. Nothing to show me the way and little to cling to.

I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what to do in a place made for a species that I do not feel quite truly part of.

And I am terrified.

Lost in the Fog

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It’s foggy tonight.

Sometimes I wonder if I have lost my way. Or if I will lose my way. Or myself.

If I get lost in the fog. If I lose my way. If I lose myself, will anyone try to find me? Or will everyone just leave me lost? It’s not like I have close friends  or anything.

The year is 2013 CE/AD.

I always knew but didn’t quite this year will come. It seemed so far away, hidden under the guise of the future. Here for a brief moment before it descends to the past.

I’ve been out of high school since 2007. Grade school seems like an eternity ago.

And I,

I don’t know what I’m doing. Or what I will do.

Maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s normal. But it’s the unknown that troubles me. I don’t know if it will be good or bad.

Once upon a time I would figure that by 2013, I would have achieved my dreams. That I’ll be a good, reasonable advanced rider. That I’ll have my own horse.

Of course, that didn’t haven. Not even close and I’m not sure if it ever will. That part of me has been slowly slipping away the past few years. I couldn’t stand the disillusionment  Couldn’t stand all those that had far more privileges and talent that I could ever hold.

I’m not sure what I want. Or need. Or want.

I know I don’t want kids. I don’t care for a family. And I can’t fathom a romantic relationship of any sort. I know I seem so sure of that…and it’s the only thing that I’m sure of (won’t it be ironic if it wasn’t?).

I don’t know.

I don’t like not knowing. And honestly, being a useless leech is getting boring.

I like the fog and the mist though (and smoke/smoky effects for that matter). There’s something mystical, ethereal to it.