The aftermath of change

There’s been something I’ve been trying to articulate but have struggled to put to words. It has to do with a type of anticipation, a gurgling urgency, to do and to be and to see.

There’s something I’ve been trying to articulate but have struggled to put to words. It has to do with a type of anticipation, a gurgling urgency, to do and to be and to see. A giddiness that leaves your head looking up rather than down at your feet, for the first time in a long while.

I am just starting to identify this feeling as the aftermath of change. I am looking both forwards and backwards, trying unconsciously to graft the two together.

I miss being a student. I miss being unceasingly curious and having that curiosity met with a curriculum and a teacher and a class. When all of that is suddenly gone, I find myself looking towards the city for reciprocation, for the city to guide me to places unseen, where the familiar sense of wonderment can once again bloom. 

But the city doesn’t respond, or it simply insists that there is nothing I can see that will surprise me. Because I’m not looking for a surprise. I’m looking for a plan, a route that I can take. 

I bide my time nursing propagated plants along my windowsill, looking for roots the way a new mother waits for first steps. I observe my plants not in any rigorous way but in a purely aspirational: “I want to understand you, but can I really study you the way I used to in school?” 

I believe that anyone who loved school, or simply security, feels this way when they graduate. There are no more set paths, no more set categories for exploration.

I’ve been quieter here, less regular in my writing. I think that I’ve been waiting to notice something without knowing what that something is.

My eczema has been flaring up, for the first time since childhood, sprouting from the crook of my arm. I read that eczema, aside from environmental factors, can be triggered by stress.

I want to say that I’m misinterpreting the city. That perhaps the city isn’t telling me to blend in but to – for a moment – cease the desire for another place, another teacher. Someone who I trust and who has a keen eye, recently told me that I’m not comfortable in my own skin. Perhaps getting comfortable, rather than getting settled, is the entire project of adulthood.