“The weariness of being loved, of being truly loved! The weariness of being the object of other people’s burdensome emotions! Of seeing yourself – when what you wanted was to remain forever free” -Fernando Pessoa
Do you feel at the edge of something life-changing? Or maybe that everything has already changed, slowly, almost imperceptibly – to bring you to where you are?
Sometimes I feel close to that edge – like something that will alter or maybe even has altered everything is within my grasp. Other times, like tonight, back home again, as others celebrate Midsommar, I find myself alone watching the sky get dark around midnight, working even though this is still technically my vacation. And I think, sitting in encroaching darkness, “Nothing has really changed at all.”
Some things do change, though, in surprising ways. I think frequently these days about how, as kids, as adolescents, our parents want to know everything we do, going so far as to snoop and spy on our secretive young selves. And yet, as an adult, it’s like they just don’t want to know. And don’t ask. Much of my life, how I feel about things, is in a public-facing blog, but my mom has read maybe only two entries in her life. Not that it matters if she does, but it’s funny that it does not interest her at all now, but in youth… what parents would not have killed for that kind of unfiltered access to their teenager’s mysterious thoughts?
Sometimes I feel like I embody the duality of both the furtive, cagey adolescent, hiding away my real thoughts, feelings and life’s events, and the concerned parent, questioning my own thoughts, motives and feelings.