we're moving forward but holding ourselves back and we're waiting on something that will never come

I was sitting in the bath tonight about to crack open my marketing book and start studying when I began reminiscing instead. I am five years old, surrounded by every small, plastic figurine imaginable (my favorite is Ernie from sesame street, riding proudly in his speed boat) and up to my neck in bubbles. I always sing, but it is never songs that I have heard anywhere else. The best songs are always the ones I make up as I go along. There is no repeat chorus because every line is different. Hours could be and are easily lost in this world I create full of action and adventure, love and romance, secrecy and betrayal. Though it is only a 2 by 5 foot tub, it is filled with infinite possibilities. Holding my breath and sliding under the water, I am no longer in my bathroom at home but rather discovering a 100-year-old shipwreck while wily outsmarting the ravenous, swarming sharks. Pouring the My Little Pony bottle of bubbles under the running water transforms me into a mad scientist creating a potion that, with only one small drop, could make any and all broccoli and lima beans instantly taste like mint chocolate chip ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Just within reach is not a toilet but a swirling vortex of blackness where only the most criminal “bad guys” are sent to face the ultimate doom. Confined to this tiny room, I so easily found contentment and the freedom to create a world with untold possibilities.

 

When did this change? When did I grow from the girl who studies the enemy’s every move to the woman who studies marketing in the bathtub? When did life become so full of responsibility that a time once so cherished and filled with freedom of thought and imagination has become just another chore? But most importantly, how can I change it back?

 

Bills. Grades. Work. Then, if I have time, fun. Life is too short. I’m tired of being responsible. I’m tired of doing the “right thing.” I just want to do what I want to do. I want to find happiness where I find it, not where people tell me I’ll find it. I want to make mistakes and learn from them. I want to understand life and people. I want to find and develop my passions. I want to love myself for who I am and not who I wish I was. I want to break away from this path that’s so worn in front of me and get lost in the woods. Sure, I’ll get stuck by some briars along the way; hell, I might even get poison ivy (and that shit sucks)! But at the end of the day, I’ll get a view like no one has ever seen. Maybe I won’t take the conventional way. And maybe it will be wrong. But what is wrong really? I truly believe that something can be learned from every experience we create, and learning will only help me discover more deeply who I am and what I’m made of.

 

I believe that so many choices are made out of fear: we choose careers that we hate because we’re afraid of not having money; we stay in relationships that stunt us because we’re afraid of being alone; we worship gods that dictate our lives because we’re afraid of trusting ourselves. What people don’t realize is that the scariest thing about fear is fear itself. If you can get past the initial intense uncertainty of fear, you’ll realize that’s all it is: uncertainty. And life is uncertain. There are no guarantees. Even if you do all the “right things,” the shit can still so easily hit the fan. So how about instead of obeying what everyone else thinks is right for my life, I listen to and trust myself? Interesting concept.

 

The hot water envelops my body and soothes and restores my sore muscles. Closing my tired eyes, I inhale deeply, filling my senses with pomegranate-scented bath oil. Hesitant at first, I close my marketing book and place it on the ground outside the tub and outside of this moment. Then, with another deep breath, I slide under the warm bath water and into the salty waters of the Caribbean and back into the world of infinite possibilities.