Going Dark?

Sometimes it feels a bit strange to finally get to the end.

Last week, I had no words at a time when I was seriously struggling to get a sense of what would be best to do in my life going forward. I left that day, and really the previous seven days, without any clear sense of what should come next from whatever it is that I have to do before I leave Chicago (for now). So much of how I have seen things come to an end has given me more brutally honest confrontations with what life ultimately can be like.

I asked myself in the last week about what genuinely matters to me. What are things that get me excited about waking up every day? What keeps me pushing along? And it’s feeling ever-increasingly more like I am only continuing to abandon whatever sense of self or inner desire to want to continue to have plans or productive strategies around my life. At a moment when I really thought that I could at least feel a sense of pride for this moment on Saturday, I am instead feeling only more just lost and on an island than ever before.

I think that the toughest thing about graduating college and finishing up undergrad is this point that nothing about the community you build here, or in particular how you are perceived here, will matter in five days. Sure there are small things here and there, and there are extreme cases, but the vast majority of how we are remembered will be a name if that. I have little desire to leave a mark on a place or in a space where. I know things will be just done so soon. On the flip side, there is the part about the relationships that you choose to maintain or not for whatever reason. There does not have to be a logic to it, but it helps sometimes even for your own clarity to try to remain consistent on that front. I think that even as things are coming to an end, I’m learning a lot about even how and where I think efforts are best placed. That’s also forcing me to sit with some bitter truths about how I should have better guarded myself.

I don’t think I thought I would ever want to be in the position of just running away, of just going completely dark and just being on my own for a few months. Maybe that’s what I” ll need to figure out where I’m at in my own head. I have no other sense of what else will give me the clarity or the sense of direction I also think that might force me to be more meticulous…