Fish gotta swin...or not (Woods Ramble, fair warning)

Ah, boundaries. Gotta love walking into walls. Brick, cement, stone, I just love walking along, thinking everything is pretty ok and then staring up at the sky from the flat of my back, a bruise forming where my thick head made contact. And of course, the more important the boundary, the harder I make that contact.

But its the boundaries that have no walls, no warning bells, nothing to strike against that often are the most damning and do the greatest damage not just to me, but to the owner of that boundary. And when the owner is me? Boy...

Now, self-deprecation is something I excel at. I spent so much of my life getting my pitfalls and failures shoved up my nose that I eventually didn't need the help. But my sinus is clear as is my windsheild these days, but I can't help but notice that every now and then pieces of myself I didn't know I was missing come totting up to kick me. Things like WANT.

Not need, because need is elemental enough that it can't be ignored most days. Need to eat, need to sleep, need to breathe. Needs are easy by themselves. Want is hard. And there are those who disagree. That's allowed. Why comment fields were invented. But I've found that when need is in question, survival need, want takes a side-step. And when want is in question, that need comes in to decide. But it's when the boundaries of need and want blur that I end up inadvertently cloud watching.

I was asked this question recently, what I was looking for/what did I want, and I gave my usual nonchalance masked in sarcastic charm answer. And then I got called on it. I didn't get pushed, but the panic still boiled up my throat to sit on my tongue and make everything tingle in unpleasant ways. I didn't have an answer. I had an idea, but even that didn't have words yet. A writer without words. NOT a good sign.

And I didn't have it in me to fake it. I COULDN'T fake it. What I was being asked was beyond sarcasm, beyond charm, beyond the masks that I have built for so long and tried so hard to let go of recently. Yet my defenses still went up when I didn't know what to do or say. That much was understandable, forgivable. Continuing to run in the same direction not knowing (and being fully aware of not knowing), however...

Now, I'm certain there are many out there that feel this idea is childish. "Why haven't you figured this out by now? You're an adult!" Huh. Do YOU know what you want? What you really, truly, hardcore WANT in this life? Yeah, didn't think so. When was the last time you thought about it? Uh huh. Stop clearing your throat, stop straightening in your seat, stop acting like this doesn't phase you because it does. And that's allowed, too.

Now, in living without self-worth for so long, I look back and realize that I did learn how to own what's my fault. I screw up, I own it, it's me. I did, however, tend to take full responsibility when things go wrong, wallowing in my own shame of failure without really seeing that though I played my part, it was just that. A PART. Today I find myself in that seat again, at the end of a screw-up that isn't entirely my own doing, but credit where it's due.

I let myself go beyond my own boundaries. I set these walls in place because I KNOW me, and I know what I like to do as opposed to what I SHOULD do. I'm a Fish, damn it, I swim. But after years of bucking the current and/or just letting myself get swept under, it gets hard to find the balance of riding the wave while still steering. The water got cold fast and it's gotten hard to move again, but movement is imperative or I'll get eaten, not by fishermen but by my willingness to just let go the line without so much as a word. Can't do it.

This THING, this situation, this moment, this meeting is not something I WANT to let go of. I want to keep it, keep it close and safe and real. But I also know that suffocation happens that way, and I'd rather have the bear walking beside me because he wants to then try to leash him and get mauled, nor do I wish to walk away from the bear. But the bear has walked away from me, and I stand in the woods a moment, breathing in the air and the scent he left behind, remembering it, keeping that much within me and safe. I leave behind a ribbon on the stone next to me, knowing that the bear knows this spot. If he comes back he'll find it there, and with it find me. And if he doesn't, no one will know what that ribbon is, so they won't know to understand it. I'm at peace with that much, never forgetting the past, but placing this want into the paws of another, knowing now what the want is and what needs are attached to it. And now as I wait, the backstroke...