Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m NOT all that. Maybe I’ve been fooling myself all along. Once I thought I might set the world on fire somehow, in some small way, but right now I’m just flagging; fatigued. Maybe I need to take a closer look and face the facts: I might be neither as young nor as good as I think I am. Thought I was. Thunk.
If I were a leaf I’d be spiraling down through the air toward the long decay on the forest floor. Drained of suppleness but bright in color, my deciduous heart.
Anger comes first, after disappointment, then the slowly tickling grief: what if I’m wrong? About my abilities, capabilities, creativity, skills? I could be living in the past and unable to see that times are changing, have changed, and I’m slowly being left behind. How do you know when your own ability to be honest with yourself is compromised? How do you know when you’re not worth what you once were?
In Swedish, there’s a saying people use to describe what happens when you grow too familiar with something: you become hemmablind. Home-blind. Blind to what you’re looking at because you’ve looked at it for so long that you no longer SEE. It’s why you always have another pair of eyes check your work, or proof-read over what you’ve already written. How do you learn to do that with your self?
Maybe I’m right. But, …what if I’m wrong?
Bah.