lxforever

“When your life is still a riddle and you’re trapped in the middle of a rock / and a hard place // … // You’ve nothing to lose / you roll the dice // They’ll never understand…”

—Supreme Beings of Leisure

“There’s a she-wolf in your closet / let it out so it can breathe”

—Shakira

Because nothing will ever be enough. You’ll get an 8.0, you’ll want a 9.0. Then you’ll want a 10.0. You’ll get a 99, you’ll want a 100. You’ll graduate at the top and want a Master’s; you’ll get a Master’s and want a PhD; you’ll get a PhD and it still won’t be enough because you haven’t written enough, done enough, published enough. You haven’t won enough. You’ll be able to lift more, pull more, do more, and you’ll want to be stronger yet. You’ll be able to run farther, run faster, run longer, and you’ll want to still best that. You’ll earn success and accolades and red ribbons and still want more, bluer, better.

You’ll have a wonderful family and friends and wonder if you give them enough. You’ll have a fantasylike childhood and wonder why that wasn’t enough. You’ll have incredible health and try not to forget that that’s enough.

You’ll get a job and find out you can do it well and then you’ll want to move up, move on. You’ll get a house and want it to last; you’ll get a husband and want a family. You’ll get a compliment, or many, a pat on the back, or many, and friends and secrets and shared surprises and people laughing at your jokes and it still won’t be enough.

But maybe—just maybe—some of these things can be.

And sometimes you’ll find yourself unfurled and uncertain. You’ll piece it all together and start to realize that the floor is starting to go beneath you, that you’re on a sinking ship and even as friends are cut loose or set free, the ship still sinks and you have no choice but to jump, and you all end up scattered across the city. You’ll realize that leaving a job can sometimes be like a breakup—one of those ones where you know the relationship isn’t good for you, but you can’t help but love it no matter what. And so you wrongfully, nostalgically, wonderfully crystallize every instant into perfection.

It won’t be enough, and you’ll always wonder, and you’ll always remember, but maybe, just maybe, some of these things can be; and maybe, just maybe, this striving isn’t so bad after all. Maybe you have all of these glass balls and you should be happy. Maybe you should stop judging everyone, but most importantly, yourself. And maybe the striving is, somehow, surprisingly, something good.

This journal was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 11:57 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.