I get it, its taken me 50 years, but I well and truly get it, the World is Round, there is no edge to fall off, it’s a round, it goes round, everything is round, there are no beginnings and there is no end. All these years I’ve been afraid of falling from the edge, I made my Earth flat, somehow, somewhere I decided that Copernicus got it all wrong. Well he was on the money.
This last year life has taken me to places I thought were the edge of the World, I did not want to look past that edge, I was afraid to look, my mind told me all that was beyond was abyss. But I looked over, I looked beyond and there was always something there, always more, why have I lived with so much fear for so long?
I have no idea, maybe I just needed to look at the Abyss, to see it was just a conjuring in my mind, it feels safer sometimes to stay behind high walls, boundaries, fences, edges that must not be crossed, maybe this barriers create distance and a feeling of false safety, from things that we think may hurt us, but how do we know what really hurts? You cannot hide for ever, well you can, but it ain’t much of a life.
I have learnt much about myself this past year, the biggest, that I’ve spent a lifetime covering up, that I put up walls to keep the world out, that I felt by being open and vulnerable I could be hurt, of course I could be hurt, I ultimately was, but that is the point, fear cannot rule you, it must not rule you, being vulnerable is being alive.
I had high walls, I let nobody in, eventually I let one person in, at least part of the way, it worked on a level for twenty odd years, but I wasn’t ready to let down my guard entirely. I’ve learnt in the last year that I like people, some people I like very much, I’ve learnt that I can feel, I’ve learnt how to feel, after all these years, maybe only because of all these years, I’ve learnt how to express myself, I’ve learnt that I have a capacity to love, that given the right time and the right chemistry that I can love, maybe its not been the right time, but in a way what has happened in the last year has woken me up, actually it has saved me.
I have met people that have made me feel alive this last year, more than I ever would have believed possible. I’ve spent time with people that have changed my life, I hope you know who you are, I am sure you do. Beautiful people, flawed people, people that have woken me up and made me want to live, have shown me that I am a creature that yearns for connection,a creature that can connect, that will one day, if I ever manage to write anything that is published your name is there in the dedication.
The only way to learn is practice, to test, by trying, probing, taking chances, to learn to ride a bike you need to fall off a few times in the process, to find a prince a girl may have to kiss a few frogs, every facet of life is about trial and error and learning, even business goes the same way, most millionaires were bankrupt at some point in their lives before they made their mint. Sometimes you need to fuck up big-style to learn. I have learnt big-style, I keep learning, I don’t think I’ve learnt enough quite yet as life keeps sending me lessons, even now my latest lesson, which I won’t go into as its an evolving and on-going one doesn’t phase me, it is a challenge, but it has outcomes and most of all it creates new options, ones I just had not considered, they all stretch out for me to take, I had never dreamt they were there.
My path isn’t the one I thought it was, so what, it matters not, the real thing is that it is a path, I don’t know where it is heading, but after the gloomiest of times I realise that the World is full of excitement if you want it to be, that there’s too much to see and I will be damned if I’m going to hang around, flat worlds are so medieval, let’s get with Copernicus and get round.
fiftyfreeandsingle 