An outline of a dream and living the simple life
Throwing it back to 2004 and writing your life's story
Hello, friends and happy August!
It’s that time of year when we keep asking ourselves and each other whether we can believe that we’re more than half-way through the year. Congratulations, we’re almost there. Not sure where we’re almost there to, but congratulations nonetheless because I’m trying to be more hopeful and optimistic about things. It’s been a tough time on a global and local levels really, I feel like we all feel that the world is coming to an end and everyone is dealing with difficult stuff, but part of me is working really hard to see the beauty in life still - it could be the delulu part of me but I’m choosing to stay in it for some time.
I was driving last week up to the north coast of Egypt by the Mediterranean where I love to escape to during the summer, when “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield started playing. I was a pre-teen when this song came out (which was exactly 20 years ago! *gasp*) and I remember listening to it and thinking it was a cool and fun song. Refreshing was the feeling that I associated the song with in part because it was the soundtrack of a Pantene ad which was quite iconic at the time.
Flash forward to now, I found myself sobbing in my car while driving and listening to this song. I think my entire generation knows the lyrics to this song and can easily sing along to it but it seemed like I was listening to those lyrics for the first time and not only that, those lyrics hit me hard. They hit me where it hurt the most. Let me write it down for you so you can see it written and so it can resonate:
“Staring at the blank page before you. Open up the dirty window, let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find. Reaching for something in the distance so close you can almost taste it, release your inhibitions.
Feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you, only you can let it in, no one else, no one else, can speak the words on your lips, drench yourself in words unspoken, live your life with arms wide open, today is where your book begins… the rest is still unwritten.”
Of course you all guessed what part punched me in the gut. Honestly it all kind did, but the part that touched me the most was the “reaching for something in the distance” because I constantly feel like I’m on the brink of something, I get motivated and inspired and energized for a minute and feel like I can create great things. It often feels like I’m literally about to grab onto the beginning of the thread that is going to unfurl into the life that I want, and then I completely lose the thread and going back to feeling lost. I can almost taste it but then it seems by tastebuds just die for some reason.
But the song then provides some hope that today is “where your books begins.. the rest is still unwritten,” (anyone getting the feeling that I’m analyzing a poem for school? sorry, guys!) which is essentially what I try and do whenever I lose hope. I tell myself, “It’s fine, it’s never too late, let’s try again, trying and failing is better than not trying at all, that is still progress” and all of the beautiful quotes and insights you see on opinion leaders and entrepreneurs’ IG and LinkedIn pages so beautifully designed. And then I feel, “Well, yes, it’s unwritten, but I would greatly appreciate having an outline for what I’ll be writing in it, because currently I might have a 1001 random ideas in my head with 0 clue on how and where to begin.” As an adult, trying to prove yourself in life and figuring out what the pages of your book should say, is quite exhausting for most of us.
I recently finished reading “Everything I know about love,” by Dolly Alderton. The book ended with her speaking about her thirties and all the tribulations that come with that age, or the concept of it (so far, I’m not really feeling how thirty is cool yet FYI, but I’m remaining hopeful).
Something she said deeply resonated with me and that was this:
“I’m starting to see how as time gains momentum my choices will narrow and their foreclosures multiply exponentially until I arrive at some point on some branch of all life’s sumptuous branching complexity at which I am finally locked in and stuck on one path and time speeds me through stages of stasis and atrophy and decay until I go down for the third time, all struggle for naught, drowned by time.”
And then, she goes on to quote Sylvia Plath capturing this same sentiment:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
―Sylvia Plath,The Bell Jar
I’m always amazed by how life is going by so fast at this stage we’re in— and by amazed, I mean low-key terrified. And I always try and calm myself because everything will happen in its own time and some people need more time to do things in life. But then my mind completely goes “mental” and starts freaking out at how as you advance further into life, some things tend to get more difficult, your options start to dwindle, until you have to settle and give up some of your dreams, even though you’re struggling right now to fully identify and crystallize that dream, and that thought is terrifying to me.
I do realize that I attempted at starting this post in a hopeful manner and then completely put a damper on it. I will attempt to salvage this now.
I was reading something, which I currently can’t remember what it was, about how one should strive to live a big life and who wants a small life, and I remember thinking “what kind of BS is that?” Of course you can live a small life. One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies You’ve Got Mail is one where Kathleen Kelly, played by Meg Ryan, tells her cyber friend and love interest NY152 (played by Tom Hanks) that she lives “a small life, valuable, but small”. I love this statement because it makes you realize that sometimes living in a simple, or “small”, manner is perfectly fine. She was able to touch people, she was super knowledgable about her field, everyone respected her, but her life wasn’t filled with events and “accomplishments” and award-winning activities (we don’t however know that for sure, because she might as well have developed into an award-winning, world touring, children’s book writer, who knows?).
My point is that I think a lot of us are striving to live a big, grand life, which is perfectly fine, but I feel like this is driven by a form of peer pressure or expectation that success and accomplishment comes with living this big life. And that is a fallacy. Grand and big doesn’t equate fulfillment and accomplishment and sometimes the most simple of acts have the most impactful of effects. We are all contributing something to this world and if it’s as simple as making those around us happy, then in my book, and in the life we’re currently living, that’s a great life.
With that being said, keep seeking your dreams and what you want in life - as small or as big as it might seem -, I know I will definitely still be trying to figure things out for myself, but for now, I’m focusing on trying to focus on the simple aspects to give myself the energy to move forward.
And with that, I leave you with some random posts to help you feel better:
Your end of summer bucket list
Your mid-year reflection
Dance your way through life
Cheers and until next time,
xoxo