I have always found there to be a certain insurmountable pressure to the complexities of living.
I am told to live in the moment. Told that soon days will come when I will not be able to remember what it is like to see from the eyes I see from now, and when I trace invisible spirals into my slightly reddened cheeks from the cutting wind, my skin will not feel quite as taut or smooth. I even find myself whispering to my sister late at night, lying in bed and staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars that adorn her ceiling, to enjoy her youth as it feels like my own has long passed.
I try to imagine that I am 83 and waking up in my body as I am now. I would sprint as fast as I could to get the burn in the back of my throat that feels none too similar to the pain in my knees from what will hopefully be decades of traveling. I would look at myself in the mirror and appreciate what I can not now, my body before it has been worn down by scars of time and before I have been exposed to the rough elements of the world.
I understand the concept of the naivety of youth. The naivety I no doubt possess now as I sit in my bed much too late for my own good and mourn the complexities of my problems. I understand that what I go through now likely pales in comparison to that of the future and that I will look back and laugh at the naivety that I have been told I contain simply due to my age. However, I can not imagine feeling any different than I do at this exact moment.
I feel the same as I did a year ago, five years ago, and all the way back when I was a kid—when I was told I would understand when I was older. I still do not understand, although perhaps the age where all the secrets of the universe become apparent to me has not yet arrived. Despite my tally of years starting to surmount to an age where I once thought I would feel quite grown up, I feel like my mind has not changed a bit since the days I would make snow angels in my carpet and skip for the sake of skipping.
The idea that in 50 years, I will wake up and be a different person than the one I am now is terrifying. Because, despite many complaints of dissatisfaction, I quite enjoy the way I think and my outlook on the world, the way I laugh at certain things, and the way I feel when the sun hits my skin. Changing is a given of growing up, but I never thought that my mind would change as well.
Now, I continue to be told to live in the moment and not take life too seriously because where I am right now is about as simple as it gets. At the same time, however, I am deciding what to do with the entirety of my life and hoping and wishing that I get it right. Here I am reminded of the same metaphor that many like me, in many instances, have used before, far better than I will, and it is the fig tree, but I am currently reading The Bell Jar, so I feel compelled to put a Sylvia Plath-esque spin to my worries.
I feel, oftentimes, that the figs that represent my futures have already fallen. That in the time I have spent staring up at the clouds and attempting to live with one foot in the present and one in the future, I have been planted too resolutely and been thus unable to reach for or catch any of those falling in front of me.
I am afraid that the life I have been so fixated on making the most of has been slipping me by due to my own stubborn intent on following what I have been told to a tee. However, although it is left out by most when mentioning the fig tree metaphor, Plath follows it up with this:
“It occurred to me that my vision of the fig tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach.”
So maybe my worries are circumstantial. Maybe the whispers of failure that fill my ears in the depths of night are simply just those borne of a tired mind. And maybe everything will be just fine if I am just me.
