Change: the epitome and the bane of my existence; the cringe in my thought and the fuel that drives my passion. It’s the phrase I fear and the state of being that I long for simultaneously, and it’s always occurring at this point in my life. Change is good. That’s what I have always been told growing up and it’s what I have been conditioned to say to others who are forgoing it. Change is scary—I’ve got a better word—it’s harrowing. But it’s also enigmatic and addictive. You can romanticize change and you can dread it. It can bring you a wealth of fortunes and a trail of calamities. It’s like the ocean’s tides, cyclic — better yet — it’s like the phases of the moon. Change is like knowing the sun will rise and set again tomorrow in the same order, inevitable. And this sequence keeps going for however long fate allows you. The most wonderful and the most dreadful attribute of change is its ability to come without warning…
I am 22 years wise, 22 years ignorant, 22 years naïve, and 22 years innocent. I’ve got the weight of society on my shoulders and the expanse of the world at my disposal. I’ve got a foundation under my feet, but I’ve lost my footing. I have a romantic disposition on the ills and unspoken truths of this world, and because of this, I get disappointed often.
I am lonely, but can’t seem to keep a committed relationship. I am compassionate, and I am selfish. I have a breadth of knowledge and a whole in my pocket, but damn it, I am still oblivious, incorrect, and rich of experience. I have a delicate ego and an emotional disposition, but I can still move an audience and stand tall while being corrected. I’ve been built up and torn down in front of spectators, and still managed to step out into the light of day with my wholeness intact.
I am on the verge of a tremendous breakthrough that is beyond myself while still managing to disappoint en mass. I’ve had people come and go; I’ve got relationships that have died and marked an era in my own self-titled legend. I am a minuscule being with aspirations that are beyond me.
I am a bewildered, doe-eyed silhouette of what I am and what I could be, caught in the headlights at a crossroad, at a fork in the road; change marking the street sign at both intersects.
And I am lost.
Change: it has the ability to excite the most vegetative of people, and the ability to disappoint the most optimistic. It bears the fruits of positive and negative consequence, a volatile yin and yang. Change is so strong it can alter a man. After years—even decades—of change, a man, if lucky, will be able to walk away from it with minor scars. I’ve seen change take its toll. I’ve seen men walk taller and I’ve seen some crippled by the events of change.
I’ve watched men walk away from change unscathed, and I have seen men never return. I’ve been left waiting on a few occasions, looking out on the vast sea of change waiting, watching, but the unfortunate never resurfaced.
