This is a stream through a landscape
23 days to 23; A Birthday Series day 15
Let’s call this some sort of a ramble
Don’t put it out there yet. Don’t put it out there yet. Don’t put it out there yet. Don’t put it out there yet. Don’t put it out there yet. Don’t put it out there yet… For the umpteenth time in one hour my mind kept wandering around “should I or should I not?, how do I get to just do it?” It’s like my sugar levels have been on the high for the past one week placing bets on every organ in my body system and threatening to play “tag you’re it”.
From wittingly pushing myself out of my comfort zone in ways more than one to navigating through life’s ordeals to questioning “how much tolerance do I have left for myself?”, the reassurance of safety in the comfort zone kept pulling me back in.
I could type out my feelings and explain what colors life has decided to show me since the start of the year but it will be a ramble.
It has become a normal to “put a name” on everything that happens in our lives . And so when we feel something we can’t quite describe, we try by all means possible to guess the nearest similarity to what it feels like so I’ve decided I’m not putting a name or topic to whatever phase I’m in now.
I stopped writing since December last year because I dare say my writing stopped making sense to me. I would drown in my drafts all day long putting pieces together but never completing them and once I left the draft to do something else, I’d forget about it until any other random day. The wordings did not make sense. They did not feel right enough to be put out there. They did not sit well enough with other penned down stories. They did not feel perfect and I wanted a validation that they were.
I’m writing this now thinking why did I ever think that? It took two months plus to realize I’d been going about in circles and I’d not written anything substantial. More months down the line and I declared myself on a break. For the most part of it, that worked for me as I stopped stressing out on editing drafts to perfection and just let them be.
I took a really long break, long enough to reset and also long enough to be even more confused than before. I stopped writing past edits and this time I was completely blank.
It didn’t take one day to get back to writing, it didn’t take one day to finish one piece but I wrote and I told myself “if it makes sense or not, if it’s not as good as what I want it to be , I’m still putting it out there. I’ll come back days, months, even years from now to edit them or just let them be. Ever since then, I’ve taken to putting a reminder to write something little in my notes everyday even if it’s a simple sentence. And I’ve not looked back since then.
I’m navigating life and worrisome challenges as a stream through a landscape. I’ve met rocks that almost pulled me down and valleys that could swallow me whole but every obstacle has helped shape my flow, to keep moving and to keep exploring the river bends.
I’ve realized that the landscape is something to grow through rather than something to conquer. Every turn teaches me something, and every setback strengthens me. Even though I have no idea where the stream will finish, I have faith in the journey that with every step I take I become a better version of myself.
So what’s around the river bend for me? It’s unknown but a next chapter of growth awaits me. No matter how narrow or wide the stream, I just need to keep flowing.
This is a stream through a landscape.
This is Day 15! Getting there gradually!
From my heart and for the journey - Oyin 💕
Rooting for you❤️