Chipping Away at Your Boulder of Dreams

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

“My brain is a ball of tangled yarn,” I wrote in a poem, circa 2014. I found some of my old poetry the other day, shoved in the bottom of a dresser between stacks of car insurance documents and other important paper things. Why do I have so many paper things? I wondered. Why does adulthood come with so much paper? So many things to sign, so many subscriptions and phone calls and constant, pinging notifications. Why does adulthood come with so much responsibility, so much time dedicated to things that do not actually matter? Why do we continue to think that the bills and emails and phone calls matter so much?

I was mildly envious of 7-year-ago Sarah, who lived in the neverland that is a college campus. I worked, sure, but it was simple, straight-forward, honest work, slicing ham in a local deli, washing dishes, mopping floors. I ran as a college athlete, but running was fun. Training was intoxicating. And I studied, of course, but I studied language. I wrote poetry and deconstructed theories and learned to question everything. 7-year-ago Sarah had the mental capacity, creativity, and wherewithal to sit on an expansive lawn and write poetry on the back of her class syllabus. 7-year-ago Sarah thought that her brain was a ball of tangled yarn, but she didn’t really know anything about knots and untangling…