Still

My bones are aching. All this movement, all this change, it weighs upon them heavily. I ponder as to whether I have ever been still in my whole life. If there has ever been a moment in which I have not been running desperately to the next. I can think of only a few; like the first Indian sunset I ever witnessed. So bold, so vibrant, so incredibly intense. It took my breath away. The journey to get there had been long and arduous, yet in that moment, everything suddenly just stood still, as if suspended, and for once, so did I.

How fleeting a moment it had been though. The sun rapidly slunk into the sea, taking with it the magenta sky, robbing me of its warmth and beauty. I grew weary of standing, looking out to the horizon expectantly, as if the show might return for an encore. Resigned, I turned to leave the sandy patch I’d been inhabiting to return to the chaos of the outside world. With all its noise and distractions. The vibrant pink hues that had once painted the sky a watercolour masterpiece, were rendered into a memory that I’d later come to dig out upon occasion, when feeling called to do so. Like a postcard sent to myself, taking so long to arrive, it becomes a surprise to receive.

Now I sit with stacks of books and a mind filled with ideas that get half-started, before they implode and new ones takes their place. I am full. Heavy. Under pressure. Yet only from myself. I reread words from times long passed, remembering the details of the occurrences they reference and pine to relive them, even though I am aware that I did not embrace them whilst I was in them. I am reminded that I do this quite a lot. Never committing to the moment I am in. Always grasping for the next, as though I am a child dissatisfied with the meal I have been served. The gift I have been given.

When did this begin, this ticking clock, loudly counting down the minutes until it’s done. This life. This great expectation. This heavy burden I feel weighs upon me. It whispers to me whilst I sleep, ‘make something good.’ I fear that in the force of trying to do so, I have in fact made nothing at all. The constant strain putting pressure on my every action, until I am so tightly bound I become immovable. I stagnate. I cease to do anything at all. Each moment becoming increasingly worrisome and drained of its joy, as though simply living is a job I care not to attend.

This existence is a series of moments amalgamating into something, the meaning of which I am still uncertain. I cogitate on whether, when I reach my last moment, I will be morose and regretful of how I drifted through the hundreds of others that came before it. Why it was that sunsets, love making and death were amongst the only things that seemed to stop time. Making the moment both long and meaningful, with all the others that made up the period before and after feel almost pointless by comparison. Why does my brain only wish to appreciate so few moments amongst a sea of so many.

This cognitive cherry picking creating a loaded emphasis on always seeking out the meaningful. Every moment, however fleeting, becomes imbued with the intent to find depth and purpose, a lack of which resulting in extreme melancholia. I disintegrate under the weight of a burden I place upon myself. I am the eight of swords. I am the bind and the release. I am the witness to my own foreclosure. Time seeps through my fingertips as though it were grains of sand. I think of my Indian sunset. I would paint every day magenta if it would hold me captive enough to stay still.