the doors/ lacked the ability or capacity

she'd been making a lot of decisions as of late. she'd been taking the time to contemplate who she was, who she wanted to be, where she was, where she wanted to be, what she was doing with her life, what she wanted to do with her life. it seemed like there were doors open all over the place, she simply was lacking the foresight to know which was best to open. she knew that opening none was not an option, but lacked the ability or capacity to definitively and confidently reach for one and to forget the others.

so she hid.
she hid behind a mountain of papers that would take her no time at all if she bothered to focus on completing them.
she hid behind blank canvases and cups of paintbrushes that took so much focus to clean after use.
she hid behind empty emotionless encounters that shouldn't have happened but did and now relentlessly stole her focus.
the closer it came to being time to make choices the more she sought to run from them and hide behind something else. someone else. anything else.

but there was no hiding. no due date, no canvas, no one could block out the list of decisions ahead of her. she just hoped that she'd figure out which door led to the future she was meant to live before she lost the key.

the debates/ making mistakes

she'd been debating about a lot of things lately. without recognizing that these internal debates simply made her feel empty inside, she found herself seeking something, anything that would fill the void.

she'd done things lately that she wasn't particularly proud of. she wouldn't say that she regretted them, but they weren't things that she was screaming out to the world that she'd been doing. she was making mistakes left right and center and pushing herself past her own comfort limits.

she knew that someone would get hurt. she'd hated herself for having to tell her that she just wanted to be friends... and hated herself even more for still going to his place when it was clear that things were simply going to go no where... she didn't know which was worse, the thought of hurting someone else, the thought of getting hurt, or the thought that neither of them cared enough to be hurt...

she can't change the past. she still has control over her own future choices, but she wonders if she cares enough to stand up for herself... and she's scared of her own answer to that particular debate. she tries to turn up the volume on her iTunes and block out the world and refocus on debates that will clarify life rather than confuse it more.

maybe life is supposed to be a mixture of confusing mistakes.
or maybe she was just really good at fucking things up.

the etching / this is who you're meant to be

she'd been afraid to pick up her pen in this capacity as of late. she was unsure of what she'd been bottling inside without realizing. unsure of what truths would be etched into the paper if she took the time to put them there. afraid of how the truth would look scratched onto the paper. black honesty on the cream coloured paper. she'd taken to imprinting on her skin instead. she'd take the time to sketch quick words on the inside of her ankles-- a place that could quickly be hid by her socks but a place that would guide her steps. but today was different, today there was no one word to lead her where she thought she needed to be. she could still faintly see the grey outline of yesterday's word which hadn't quite come off despite her scrubbing in the shower. witness. that's what she had been spending her time doing. and who she was looking for. looking for a witness to her life while she tried to stop being a witness and start being a participant. maybe that could be today's word: participate. she etched that into her ankle in her messy scrawl. she longed for the day she'd feel completely comfortable with where she was and who she was with and where she was going. she wanted that sense of comfort, that feeling of belonging, that knowledge of 'yes' this is where you're meant to be and 'yes' this is who you're meant to be with. instead, she was stuck staring at the faded grey and fresh black ink etched into her skin, still in a place that felt a little off, with no set direction of which way to head. it was that sense of unknown and possibility that excited and terrified her. she was so ready to pack up her potential and head off into the world but something was holding her back. she wished she could figure out what exactly that was, but was unable to. so, here she was, a little messy around the edges, a little over compassionate, creator of great disasters, but ultimately, no matter what she did, no matter how many mistakes she made, no matter how many words were etched into her ankle-- she was here.