For most of my twenties i was moving fast enough that i did not have to be in one place long enough to examine it. Always something next. Another goal, another plan, another thing to work toward that kept the present moment slightly in the background.
I told myself this was ambition. Drive. The healthy refusal to be complacent.
It was partly those things. But underneath them was something else that took me longer to name. I was moving partly to avoid catching up with myself. The questions i had not answered. The feelings i had not sat with. The version of myself that existed in the quiet that i did not fully want to spend time with.
The move, the new job, the new project, the next thing, all of it kept me busy enough that the quiet did not get much space. And in the rare moments it did, there was always something else i could pick up and hold in front of it.
The day i finally stopped, really stopped, was not chosen. It was forced by circumstances that removed most of the forward motion all at once. And in the quiet that followed i finally had to spend some time with the person i had been running from.
It was not as bad as i had feared. That is usually the case with the things we avoid longest. The imagination builds them into something more menacing than the reality. The actual experience of sitting with yourself, honestly, without the distraction and the forward momentum, was uncomfortable but it was survivable. More than survivable actually.
What was there in the quiet was not condemnation. It was mostly just unfinished business. Things that needed acknowledging. Patterns that needed naming. A version of myself that needed some honest attention rather than being outrun indefinitely.
I think the thing we are running from is rarely as bad as the running suggests it is.
Slow down. Turn around. Whatever is back there, you can face it.
https://vote.hive.uno/@thebbhproject
https://vote.hive.uno/@hivecuba
Support the witness and vote for TheBbhProject carried out by 