Free Ya’ Mind

I’m sitting in a library on 96th street, near a window where I can watch people walk by.

It’s warm today. The sun shines with a cool breeze to follow. I just don’t feel the love today.

It’s hard to grasp and I’m worried I’m missing out on something or that I may run out or miss the wave.

I shouldn’t worry so much. But sometimes I just can’t help it. Everything worries me. From the time that i wake up everyday, to the time that I choose to sleep at night. I worry about what i eat and how much it’s gonna cost me. Whether I’ll feel good afterwards or if it’s good for me at all?

I worry about how I’m doing, if I’m ok and I’m worried about all my worrying, if it’ll cost me my sanity and good fortune. I’m worried that’ll be poor and struggling forever, or that when ”success” does come, that it won’t be as satisfying as I had hoped.

I’m worried that I worry too much, and some days – not enough. I’m worried that this will be my journey forever and I will have to walk it forever alone and worried.

I’m worried about finding love and companionship and what that looks like. I’m worried that my changing outlooks on gender and relationships will make it harder for me to find love or for love to find me.

I’m worried that my soul mate has already found me but I was too worried to notice. I’m worried that I will miss out on all the good things, not simply because of my worry, but because I lack the resources to make it out of worrying situations.

Will my life be a perpetual state of worry and overcome, worry and overcome.. worry and overcome.

What else is there but this perpetual state of worry?

I’m not spending enough time on my art and the things that truly matter to me, but when I do have time, or is presented with the time, i can’t help but focus on other things, like my worrying feelings.

What are they gonna say about me? If I became well known, what are they gonna think? Do i measure up, have i struggled and worried enough to prove my worth and creativity?

Not knowing makes me worry. Not knowing what to do from day to day. Not knowing about taxes or what i need to file. Not knowing and then taking so long to find out how. Finding out how and still not knowing enough.

Everyday Is a battle through the unknown, it worries me because I feel like I’m the only one unprepared. Not ready to not know anything and not caring about the things I should know.

What are those things? Does it really matter? Everyone and everything says it does. How do they get to write books and get their books reviewed by experts? How do they find the time to write articles about Lori Harvey’s love life and i can’t seem to pull myself out of existential crisis?

How? How does the artist make time to paint when the world’s on fire? How? How does the fashion stylist partner with their sewing machine, create culture defining pieces that speak to generations. how?

How can I make anything worth anything if i have damn near nothing to spare except a little sanity? I try to hold it together just enough to believe I have something to offer but the bigger and shittier this world gets, and the more people get recognized for their “efforts” to make the world a “better place”, i start to feel more and more like, maybe I do belong but Im a loooong ways away from getting there. My slow walking ass may never catch up.. 🤦🏾‍♀️

so what am I left with, except worrying feelings?? Guilt? For not doing the things i said i wanted to do with my life, the things that bring me purpose and meaning? Shame? For not even being talented enough and wasting too much time worrying to practice my craft. Lonliness? For all the times I’d rather be alone and all the many more times I can’t be – all the times it’s hurtful to share a lonely place and all the times in which it can be joyful.

I’m worried for all the good days not lasting long enough and the bad days coming back around too soon. I’m worried that it will always be too late, too expensive and too far to reach. I’m worried that I’ll give up too soon because its easier than worrying about every day shit that doesn’t matter.

I’m worried that when I stop worrying, there will be nothing left to do, nobody to call, no art to make, no wealth to build, no world to make “ better”.

What is life without the state of worry? Of broken promises and dreams yet realized? What is time without the psychology of the thought process, worrying too much, thinking too little. Learning, evolving, struggling, worrying, learning, evolving..

I sometimes hate being human, in every way, it steals from the joy and purpose I try to find, and yet without it, the joy is lost in translation.

To enjoy a day in the park means you must endure the suns heat on your skin. The bees that buzz by and the mosquitoes that stop for a drink of your blood.

But nature is beauty and perfection. It’s love and hate. It’s worry and peace.

It’s disgusting to be honest. All this and I still have a uterus that bleeds once a month? Sinuses that swell with mucus that never seems to run dry?

Feet that ache when I walk for too long. Or a tongue that is perpetually moist but never thrist-quenched. I can drink and eat each day and still wake, famished and thirsty.

Who says this was the life “God” envisioned? Forever in debt to the yin and the yang. There really can’t be one without the other yet, where is this knowing getting me? Where is it taking me? To “higher heights” of consciousness? Then what? I still gotta afford food to eat, or better yet, how to provide it for myself without the limitations of a foodstamps card or ”government assistance”.

Or maybe ”eating” is for the lower consciousness, consuming only to be consumed. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Yeah it just makes no sense. There is no RIGHT explanation. It just all sucks. Yeah, you need flour AND sugar AND eggs to make a cake. Yet, is that cake our only satisfying end??

Am I only tolling this much, worrying for this long, only to bake a cake in which will be consumed without acknowledgement or appreciation? Then when only the crumbs are left, i am forced to start all over again, with only the crumbs to show for all the work that was done.

Love, sweat, and tears goes into every day of the life I was forced to live, trying to make a cake sweet enough to consume forever and forever, never fading – Like “the everlasting gobbstopper”.

It’s funny, cuz I think we are all like little Willy wonka’s, Trying to make the sweet stuff last forever and ever. Then being eternally disappointed when it’s ends, fails, breaks down, and destroys all that is good and wholesome.

Poor Charlie for thinking he ever had a real chance to be happy forever. The good shit only last a little while. The oompah loompas knew this, but they were put to work in the factory. The hands that helped bring the cocoa nut to the mainland, were the same hands that helped create the lavish garden of sweets – but only the destructive, unbridled, unparented, spoiled clan of small humans could inherit it. It was the oompah who called out the fat kid for consuming too much chocolate, the magnetic stream of pleasure swooping in and entangling him. stealing the innocence of a good time. The spoiled brat got what she deserved, but was it all her fault for believing she should have everything she ever wanted? The senical kid had met his match – crazy geniuses who shrink the observations of the other until little remains. (Because we all can’t exist together AND be right..)

Sorry to the over achiever, whose one disappointment changed the course of her life forver, never again aiming for perfection but for the ease and comfort of life – which may lead to a life of self pity and self destruction. Sorry to the underdog who realizes that you should never meet your idols and you should never wish to be like them.

So then what? We continue on – consuming, yet to be consumed. Finding the joy and wonder in life and losing yourself in it – only to come out on the other side – bent, stretched, expanded and completed exhausted.

If you sing, dance and drink a little fizzy pop, you might find it kinda fun, until look up and see the machine – ready to consume you until there is nothing left.

And so is that the end? Waking up to the fantasy of life? The cruelty of death and the pain of enduring it all?

I’ll take my fizzy pop to-go, please. 👋🏾