For a year now, I have been thrashing out ideas—imagined futures—once I arrive at the inevitable termination of my job contract.
I feel like I’m suffocating from a lack of imagination. When did this happen? I remember the nights I spent outside the veranda, looking at the stars sprawled on the night sky, dreaming about the things I could do and places I would go when I got older, unconstrained by practicalities or paychecks.
Gasping for air, I’m trying to remember my younger self, the child who used to dream dreams, dream faraway dreams, without concern about access to resources and logistics. That child didn’t worry about résumé gaps or budgeting the income that trickles while the waterway is still open. She just… dreamed.
I can only speak from my own experience, like the feeling of walking through mud and trying to walk against the tide. Have you ever had moments like that too? When the weight of reality seems designed to keep you in place, even as something inside you knows there must be more?
I always thought there is something more.
I need to dream again. But not just dream—I need to believe in those dreams again.
I am unsure why I feel like doors are closing in front of me when it’s more like a stifled imagination that keeps me from expanding my perspectives. I want to think that the doors aren’t locked; I’ve just forgotten how to turn the handles.
Sure, you could say, “seek and you will find.” Those words have been echoing in me lately, whispering in songs I forgot how to sing. Perhaps seeking isn’t about finding the “right path” or the “traditional way” or the “this is what works, so this must be the only way”, but about putting one foot in front of the other on a path I choose.
And so, I have to choose a path and commit to it so that I can start working on moving forward. Even if that path winds differently than I expect. Even if I can only see a few steps ahead. I need to move forward like walking on fresh grass or slicing through the overgrowth as I make my own path.
The alternative I have is to stand still, suffocate slowly in possibilities I never pursue.
jessa 