Thirty-three

It certainly has been a while. I was thinking of all the words these keyboards have typed and all the words left at my fingertips left to be written. I wonder if life is always a little like this, reflections of the past and longings for what could be. Truth is I think I have always wanted to write. To be lost in thought, contemplating ways of making me be here, right here, in this present moment, where all I can savour are the words that seem to exist between the whispers in my mind and the arrangement of letters I read. I can't seem to do it on paper. I can't keep up. My mind races and corrects itself once things have been said and I bore myself waiting for my pen to write. But what could I write about? 

So, here goes. I am thirty three. My life has been a bit of the same the past few years and I worry how easy it is for time to pass by and for things not to change. I think I have always craved change. I remember the first time I moved furniture around my room and how every few months I would keep doing it. I convinced myself that it would give me a new perspective and make me appreciate the things I had in a new light, but I often wonder if I did it because my life bored me and it was the only novelty I had to keep things loosely interesting. Fast forward to my grown up self and all I can think of is packing everything up and moving somewhere different. Change, once again. Resign from my job, leave my friends, leave the city in which I've lived now for 16 years, move out of the house I've bought. Just go. I've dreamt of living in the countryside for a long time now, the silence of words spoken so that all sounds left are soft melodies sung by nature. To be alone with my thoughts, to feel little in a big world, insignificant. Yet so free. And to see what comes of it, who she becomes. I'm a little curious, aren't you? But I don't think I realised how fearful I am. Fearful of getting it wrong. Doing something I thought I wanted to realise I don't, and then what? How do I ever trust myself again? 

My recent dilemma has been whether to colour my hair or not. I've contemplated this decision for a couple of weeks now and it's interesting to listen in on the fear that rules. Fear of getting the wrong colour, of it being too dark or too light, or not covering the greys that now permanently light up my temples. Fear of regret, that now I have to deal with regrowth if I commit or colouring it to my natural colour, which will then fade, make my hair dry and look damaged. Fear of realising I have little belief in my own beauty, which makes me spiral into feeling pathetic when I want to be a little vain. Fear of spending money on something not needed, and the guilt I then carry when I do. Even now, I've talked myself completely out of it. And as soon as I do, I'm back in. A total yo-yo at the mercy of fear. Total decision paralysis. How can this be?

I'm not sure I started this thinking I was going to write about fear. I seriously live with a lot of it. I'm not sure if it feels like it's part of my skin, or if it feels like a tumour I need serious intervention removing. I wonder who I'd be if I didn't have so much of it. Where I'd be. What I'd have done with my life so far. And sometimes I wonder about all the things I started that I never finished or never gave my all, not because of a lack of discipline, but because I feared what would become of it. And how so many of the decisions I have made were because they were in my comfort zone, familiar, achievable. A lot of happiness has come from them, but I can't help but wonder, what if fear didn't govern my decisions? Shall I try?

Write more next time, with freshly dyed hair.

Love,

Sofia