There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely, I realize. It’s a fine line, blurry but razor sharp, and easily crossed if you’re not careful.
Sitting in a coffee shop reading and blogging and people watching: Blissfully alone.
Standing under a scalding hot shower at 3 o’clock in the morning, just standing there, until the water runs cold: Pretty damn lonely.
It’s all about perspective, of course. Is it a pen, or is it something else? I know the drill.
I feel like I’ve been going through this evolution this year from “Where am I going?” to “What am I doing?” to “Why can’t I do it right?”
At first I just wanted to run. I had this “anywhere but here” kind of mentality. I’ll find work anywhere but here. I’ll feel settled anywhere but here. I’ll be happy anywhere but here. It took a lot of growing up to let myself settle down, to just live somewhere without plotting my next move. So then it became not where you are but what you’re doing.
My mom always says “Bloom where you’re planted.” The point being that where you are (on the planet or in your life) shouldn’t dictate whether or not you thrive. Fair enough. So I started focusing instead on what I wanted to do with myself, independent of where I was. I thought I’d nailed it with the whole grad school thing, but we know I’ve been questioning that for a while now.
So then it becomes this question of: What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I get this right?
Today in microbiology (what the hell am I doing in microbiology?) we were talking about the growth of flagella on bacteria. (It’s the tail.)
The curious thing about flagella growth (that could be a book title… dibs!) is that it doesn’t move from the base outward like a plant rising up from the ground. Rather, it comes from the top down. Basically (I’m going to butcher this), a little cap attaches to where the tail should grow. But rather than the tail sprouting from the body and pushing the cap outward, the cap creates all these little layers that pile up on top of the base slowly pushing it up and away.
Shwaa? I know. In the end it’s the exact same growth in the exact same trajectory. But it leapt out at me today as I was sitting there just aching in class and my professor saying in her delightful British accent, “It’s such a strange way to grow.”
Ain’t that the truth.
That’s the only thing I wrote in my notes today: Strange way to grow.
I think maybe that’s my problem. I’m fixing things slowly but surely, yes, but maybe I’m going backwards. I’m starting with the little details.
Where will I live? What will I do? Who will I be with?
And inching outward to bigger, scarier questions.
What am I doing wrong? What do I want? (Who do I want, perhaps?) Ultimately… Who am I?
I think that all of those questions are really, really difficult to answer. But I feel like the work I’m doing in yoga is getting me there. Like the whole practice has plopped down on top of my life like a little cap and it’s creating all these new thoughts, all this new possibility. Letting life build, layer upon layer of old stuff, to slowly push me upward.
Anyway. I watched the coolest documentary last night. Everyone in the world needs to see it.
















