One of the problems when you’re navigating unfamiliar territory is that you tend to either be concentrating on where you’re going or trying not to tread in dog turds on the pavement. It’s easy to get so caught up in these tasks that you never actually look up. You never look around, never take in the architecture above your head or absorb the views of the countryside.
You’re too busy trying not to get lost, not to get shit on your shoes.
Of course, every now and again you realise that you really don’t know where you’re going. You have to pause, take a moment, maybe look for some landmarks to guide you, maybe consult a map, maybe sit down for a while and figure out which road you need to walk down next.
Why is it only then that you really look up? Why is it only then that you see the other paths you could have taken, wending into the distance?
I’ve always liked knowing where I was going. I’ve always had a Plan, some sort of idea of what I’m going to do next, where I want to be. Of course, it’s always Subject to Change, and frequent change at that, but I always have some sort of course of action mapped out in my head.
Just lately, my Plan has sort of fallen apart. Not really for any good reason, but just because suddenly what had seemed like a Really Good Idea suddenly seemed a lot less attractive, if not downright stupid. I’m not sure why. There was no one event which suddenly invalidated the Plan, nothing that anyone did or said, no circumstances that changed. I just woke up one morning and thought ‘Oh. Right. What next then?’
So maybe that’s the reason why today I got a sudden glimpse of a life that I could have led, had I made a different decision a couple of years ago.
Now, I’m not saying that I made the wrong decision back then, because no matter how ‘interesting’ my life may be now, I think I’ve done what I wanted to do and the fact that it didn’t work out is just one of those things.
But it was as if I were sitting on a hill, looking at the view through binoculars, when suddenly I caught sight of myself somewhere else, going in a different direction. It threw me for a moment. Is that really where I could have been? Where exactly had my current path diverged from that alternate one? What would it have been like? I felt strangely dislocated.
I think part of the problem is too much choice. At the moment, the world is at my feet. I could do anything, get a job anywhere. Maybe Manchester. Maybe Leeds. Maybe a whole nother country. If I can get my freelancing going again, I could work from anywhere, I wouldn’t even be bound by the whole job thing. Trouble is I just don’t have any idea where I want to be. I need a reason, something to move towards, and without that, I feel a bit lost.
Maybe it’s having my life boxed up around me that’s done it. I think I’ve hit about 40 boxes now, still probably a few more left to do. Just makes me wonder where I’m gonna go, what I’m gonna do. I could pack all of this stuff into a van and just… go.
I think perhaps this is all just imponderable. Unanswerable. The best way forward? Go play on IRC and worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
(Note: I just realised that this probably sounds like a really miserable post, but it's not. I'm actually really rather chirpy at the moment. Just… drifting a bit.)
