I had this strange kind of feeling earlier today, like something big was going to happen and my unconscious was already preparing for it. It was a peaceful, positive feeling, almost (most definitely) deeply spiritual; one that sits heavy with you as the day ends and you look at the stars with a glimmer in your eye and a warmth in your heart. It was just so sudden, so contrary to what was happening around me, that I couldn't miss it if I tried.
Picture this: I’ve just finished my last swim of the week and am sitting at the edge of the pool, removing my cap and goggles, having some sips of the energy drink still left over in my sipper. Usually I chat with the other swimmers around, but today, everyone is just doing their own thing. Hardly anyone is talking; in fact, the main thing I can hear is just the water sloshing around as the filters work with it. Some of them are going to wake up tomorrow and appear for the last of their board exams, some are going to come back for another swim in the morning. For all of us, Sunday is the only proper rest day we will have. We’ve just accepted our fate and many of our jokes surround this theme, but you can’t deny the quiet tiredness that comes with working so hard towards a goal.
And I don’t think I’ve noticed this quiet tiredness outside of me before.
So today when I noticed it, something shifted inside me; it told me not to worry, and that it had my back. What “it” was is a question I am yet to address, and what it is anticipating is something only time will tell. But in that moment I knew I’m going to be working harder than I ever have, using all of my mental health skills at all times, needing all of the social support that I can get. My life is about to change again, and I can only hope it is for the better.
That’s the thing about life, isn’t it? You hope it only gets better while you prepare yourself for the worst. You toil away while keeping one eye on the light at the end of the tunnel. You know nothing about the future yet you plunge yourself into the deep sea that is the work that goes behind building that future. You’re surrounded by stress and you believe you’re supposed to be completely unaffected by it. And one fine day, you just decide this is where you were meant to be all along.
I wonder whether there is a certain age for it, whether it’s more about experience or about mindset, whether it makes you suddenly stop wanting to do more or pushes you to experience life even more fully. I love that all of life’s mysteries usually only come to me late at night if I stay awake long enough, but this one just refused to be slept off. “I am here,” it said, “and you are doing this.”
So it is here, and I am doing this, and this is where we let curiosity take the lead again.
