Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

It took 4 days, writing it down, and saying it aloud, but I'm finally able to grasp what I've been saying these past few days. You can't go back.

It's interesting and fun to happen upon ideas you already encountered like they're brand new. I wonder how many times I've come across the realization I'm having now. Epiphanies are often like this. A little bit over time and then all at once.

If I can't go back, then I won't find what I'm missing here. It isn't here. And it isn't out there. It isn't anywhere. It can't be had or held again. I've recently seen, secondhand, how painful, disruptive, and damaging it can be to hold on to something or someone too tightly and for too long. I was always good at letting go, but never too good at moving on. It's served me, so I thought it was a good quality, a trait to nurture.

Maybe, maybe not, I don't know.

But I do know I'm wasting my time now. Well, you can't really waste time. Time wastes you! I know I'm not using my time wisely, I'm not using it to build anything. I don't think there's a version of me doing something other than what I'm doing now, but it's still useful to me to be aware.

Anxious people I know speak to the perils of being self-aware, but being self-aware isn't knowing you're doing a bad thing or feeling your bad feelings in real time. It's not doing the bad thing. Being self-aware is a skillset to mitigate and meaningfully address situations in ways that are uplifting and generative! It's restraint, it's control, it's the creativity that is birthed from limitations. It's the work the fills up the time allotted to do it. It's living up to the deadline.