After Brown

The more things change, the more I attempt to struggle to keep myself the same. But I can't stay the same, and by the time I realize that I'm struggling to stay the same, I also see the myriad ways in which I, too, like the people and circumstances around me, have failed to remain the same. But it's a strange, hollow and lonely feeling when it seems like someone's passed you by. I want to feel happy, glad; cheer them on in their life's advancement, but at the same time, I too want to change without having to undergo all the work and the pressure that change entails. Maybe that's why I don't like to change-- As a packrat, I don't like to throw things away. But if I'm to change, I have to take inventory and figure out what it is in me that's going to stay with me on the next step. My path is littered with pieces of me that have been thrown away, some at great cost to myself, and others quite carelessly.

I look up and I can see shadows of people dancing among the stars, striving to reach even further and I long to be up there with them; among the stars, among the people who didn't let their own fears or their apprehensions stop them from discarding so much of themselves so they could be light enough to fly up to the heavens. I like myself. Well, most of, well, some of myself. I'm always afraid that the next thing I'll have to discard is something that I've always considered an important part of me, only to realize that it was something so peripheral, so far from what was actually at the core of me. That one day I'll discover that who I thought I was, was someone completely different, made up of pieces of me that I've discarded along the road. That I'll find that my identity has been carelessly strewn here and there, and that this person I now am, is someone strange and unfamiliar to me.

It's a struggle then, to totter along, one laborious step at a time, clutching everything that I think is so important to who I am, or to sit out, and separate what's important from what's not, and leave it all there, on the side of the road. There's a pain in admitting that what I've been, what I've carried for so long isn't a part of myself, but there's a wholly different pain in watching people pass me by. I'm much too competitive, maybe.

It's gotta be the fear and the laziness; that I'm too afraid of who I'll become, and that it'll be so difficult, that it'll cost me so dear that I'll look back and say that it wasn't worth it. But I've caught glimpses of who I want to become, I've seen the shadow of the person I want to be, and I long for it. I know what kind of person's waiting for me up there, so why am I so scared? So afriad?

Probably because I'll have to take the parts of me that delineate my comfort zone, and then dismantle them, leaving them on the side of the road. My comfort zone's been with me a long time, and I've gotten rather used to having it around. But I think this is where I have to stop, and remove that from me. I've gotten a little too big for that particular thing, and who knows? Maybe it'll serve someone else better than it's served me.

I'll just leave it on the side of the road,

right

here.

In full view of the road.

Goodbye.