We all have pictures in our minds of who we want to be. And some days I’m just not that person. Some days I’m sad and useless and I have nothing creative or witty or interesting or smart to say. I don’t know how to feel so I feel helpless and lonely even though I could call a million friends and go a million places. I just feel lonely in the world. I’m that person I don’t want to be.
I wrote once that I try not to believe in hope. I write all the time about how I’ve built my life around focusing on the steps I’m taking and not where I’m going. I find refuge in that. I find freedom and joy and my moments are worth something. But there’s a flipside. You can say, I am going to take a step, any step, no matter where it takes me, no matter the destination. The steps are what counts. But then it can’t also be that the destination counts. You have to choose. And there are moments, there will always be moments when all we want is to know that we will get past them. And if we could focus on the destination, on the place we will one day be, then we can get through these moments now.
But.
You can’t have it both ways. There’s a choice, then, in that kind of life. I can’t focus on the destination; I’m focusing on the moments. And the question is valid, it’s important, it matters: where do you want to be next year, the year after, what’s your five year plan?
And I think, but I don’t have a five year plan. I don’t believe in five year plans. Every five year plan I’ve ever had has been planning and working and building the pyramids brick by brick and ending up in an entirely different life. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
I know that everything I just wrote isn’t true. I am being simplistic and difficult and obtuse for no good reason. But the unreasonableness is camouflage for something that’s real. I don’t believe in plans because I can’t believe in hope. But I can believe in moments. And except for days like today, moments are enough. Even the best of us can’t have everything.