Maybe I'm a Hypocrite

The Jack Johnson Album that includes a song called Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

As you might have noticed, I love to write pep talk posts. For example, the last two posts: everything is fake, don't fall for it, or, trust is a cop out, do something with your life. Well, here's the thing: that is somewhat hypocritical and I feel the need to explain that. These 'peppy' rants are things that go on in my brain, thought exchanges that I have with myself, and somehow translate into 'you' form when I put that down on paper. To make a correction: I am one of the single biggest perpetrators of these problems.  I am, objectively speaking, doing absolutely nothing with my life. In the big scheme of things I am contributing nothing to society.  I write these blog posts because it drives me insane.



Here is a poem I wrote in creative writing that basically sums up my thoughts on this in the last few months:

Living in the future and living for the past,

somewhere out there, eventually,

you'll leave a set of footprints in the concrete,

somewhere back there, just memories,

is the motivation, the love, the passion.

In the windowsill, scribbling on a blank sheet,

snow filled mornings and moonlit nights, laughing,

tomorrow.

The sound of cool water through river teeth,

muddy shoes and flowers in a messy braid,

next month.

Someplace unknown, left off the headlines,

somebody’s life changed for better,

years away.

Sitting here, switching seats every 90 minutes,

like some slow-mo musical chairs, where the

songs only play in my head, over and over,

dancing off into the distance, daring me.

But I won't follow. In coming times I will

chase that lone guitar through the woods,

the beat of drums across mountain tops,

the squeaky violin through canyon walls.

But the present is just for songwriting

The time when these songs will be sung,

remains unspoken, my question quiet:

What if what was never born stays silent in it’s grave?

These thoughts come and go, but I stay,

completing all those trivial assignments,

a task without a vision, but I follow it blind.

They tell me to, I do, but one foot still taps

to that rhythm that won’t leave me alone.

This poem, basically describes my frustration. As a nordic skier, I am held up by a backbone of goals. I do everything for this future occurrence. I risk today, put off tomorrow, so next week, next year, it will be better. Everything is big picture for me, and there are times when that drives me crazy.


The problem with planning, setting dates and times for the upcoming years, is that it NEVER goes according to script. The problem with life is that it is so much more improvisation than choreography. I can plan my movements to every beat of the drum (is that what you do when you dance? I wouldn't actually know...) but when the song glitches, when someone fumbles, when the audience throws a tomato at me, I am left with no plan.


I can spend my entire life planning, waiting, wondering. I can search for the right moment, the right opportunity, the right key, forever...but I will never know when the right moment was until my very last one. And nobody knows when that will be. I could be diagnosed with cancer, caught in a car accident, get lost in the mountains...and it could happen tomorrow. Things like this happen. And if it does, would I be okay leaving all those things I was going to say unspoken, all those things I wanted to do left undone, the life I wanted to live untouched? All those somedays, sometimes, somewheres, turned to nevers.


I want to plan. Yes. I want to think about my future. Yes. But I also want to live. I want to put use to what potential energy I've put into the bank now.


Maybe I'll join the cool kid on the corner holding the "Smile You're Beautiful Sign." Maybe I'll join social issues club at my school even though I don't have the time. Maybe I'll stop keeping a comfortable distance, a quiet voice.


Maybe I will keep sitting here, wondering. And that thought scares me. A lot.



Sitting, Waiting, Wishing,

Victoria