PAVEMENTS

An exercise on honesty and acceptance

A decade ago, I imagined my future self to be a writer sitting in a cafe, writing, wearing black, having coffee; an editor with a corner office up high, sunlight peeking in. Today, I was in a cafe, not writing, but wearing black and having coffee with someone I write to but hardly ever write about; and today, I’m a magazine designer, sitting ten paces away from a corner office up high, sunlight peeking in—the very office I was all choked up and teary-eyed to see when I saw its beginnings as it was being renovated during my first month, because it was, after all, everything my twelve year-old self wanted it to be.

In ten years’ time, I did everything I could to be closer to my childish dreams, sometimes in willful determination with exact goals and expectations, but mostly in oblivious, careless, even irresponsible and impractical abandon, that in doing the things that made me happy and patient and kind, I ended up here, the same place I long dreamed to be in.

It is taking a while, a long while actually, and much justification, anger, denial and defeatism to let go of this, of what I have always known myself to have wanted. Deep in my heart, I knew it the moment I got the job. I clearly remember being asked, “Were you waiting for this?” And I hesitated. Because I wasn’t. And the first thing I thought was how arrogant to think of me waiting, waiting! chin on palm, elbow on a table, in pensive thought! or pacing? pacing in ardent anticipation?! for this.

In the one year, four months and three weeks I have been here, there have been countless disappointments and moments of disillusionment I have always overlooked, shrugged off, or most often, blamed myself for. This is exactly what I dreamed of and everything I wanted. The simple truth is that I never counted on me changing before I got to this precious place I worked hard for.

I reproached myself for being oh so mature and arrogant enough to want a vocation, to have other, newer, shinier dreams, to have grown into a person my twelve year-old self can not even begin to comprehend.

I don’t know exactly when I got it, but somewhere along the way, I did finally figure it out. It’s never about getting where you want to be. It’s about always having something worth loving and doing the best you can, whether you’re twelve or twenty-two. It might not always be the same things, but to feel your heart and self settled in however many ways every few months is always worth it. And it’s about always having a place to learn and do what you love as best and as much as you can. Perhaps you have to move around every so often to find it, and that’s okay, or if you’re lucky, perhaps you’d be able to find a place that moves with you as you grow. In the end, it’s about keeping up with your own self, that you don’t lose sight of how much further you can go.