I’ve been stuck in limbo, not knowing where my future will take me. Or perhaps I should say where I would take my future. I’ve been in this space for a while, wondering where what it is that I am going for. Each page written or application sent, I wait for the inevitable disappointment that lies on the other side. My mind feels stuck in the corner at a party, looking out and becoming envious of all the others who are shining and shimmering. Why can’t I be the one who dances? What is it I’m meant for in all of this world? Where is my next step supposed to be? Am I always supposed to be on the outside looking into the world as if it were to be a spectator to this grand play, never to grace the stage as an actor or an act but simply a background concept in the lore of another history or to watch others make moves. These are questions I can’t answer but I feel like the weight of these questions daily. It drives driving me down and into dark places. I know that these emphatic expressions are the manufacturing of a mind in need, but how do I find my way out when the world feels so colorless and devoid of merit.

I’ve wondered for a long time if being stuck at this doorway to my dreams is simply an act using me using the wrong keys or me finding the wrong address. I knocked at the door that people assured me was the place I was meant to be. People tell me, “There is no way you won’t get in,” and “Of course, you deserve to make it to the other side of the threshold.” And yet, here I stand as it begins to rain. The wet and cold mixes with the lonely feeling knocking at this door. I can’t seem to be able to open door so all that is left if hoping someone will hear my knocking and answer.

“Don’t want too much,” I tell myself. “If you want, then they can take it from you.” Voices of my past pains haunt my steps into those future directions of myself. How can I keep moving forward through all this anguish? No matter how fast my mind races, If I don’t know where the finish line is, there is never any hope of getting there. I don’t want to betray myself, my past, or my future. I started this road, and I intend to finish it, but the lights have gone out, and all I’ve been doing is following my feet. Is this the end of my race or just another segment? Will I find the finish line or just the road? If I make it to the end, will I find that fulfillment or just the emptiness of the road?

I feel again like I am bleeding sand out of my hands. I feel as though I was never meant to create anything of substance. The towers I build will fall away with water and wind as I watch, trying to constantly keep them upright during a storm. What is my purpose if not to create? Will there be a transcendent masterpiece of just dust on the wind for another generation? Though these are dramatic acknowledgments, they feel so real within me.

More questions come that I can’t quell. Truth and fate seem to be beyond reach as I begin to unravel, not knowing the path forward. If this is my fate to wallow and wander, to struggle and suffer, then so be it as it gives hopefully to a greater purpose, but without the name of that purpose, this struggle and suffering become cruelty. If it is just by the circumstance that I drew the shortest straw, so be it, as I know the probability is always reset at the start of the game. But what is this game I am playing, and is it worth it to keep anteing up? Why am I playing by the rules of a game that seems unjust or unfair?

I am most concerned for my heart which is aching and tired. It’s through these tumultuous times that I have to express myself. My dream that has driven me forward feels battered. Perhaps it was a fool’s idealism that had driven me to this wall, like a recompense for believing in something. I can understand why it’s easier to not hold onto anything, but without it I would have felt empty for all those years. That’s the strength that my dream has had on me, and now my dreams feel so tenuously hanging by a thread as the world has taken turns swinging its ax.

I feel as though if I were to lose this dream, I would lose myself in the chaos of the world. It’s the thing that I have clung to so readily to get me through all these changes, and if I can’t even have that anymore, then what is it this poor frog will aspire to come out of the well? Can I keep rising on the ambiguous prospect of a future unknown? Like stepping into the dark, hoping that I will somehow find a purpose and path?

I don’t even know what I’m looking for, a sign or a victory. I feel as though victory would not echo in the hollow of my chest. That this void is an endless hunger that can’t be filled as it was never meant to be. I don’t know if anything could have prepared me for my life, and I probably wouldn’t have believed them anyway. Is it foolish or wise? Was I disagreeable or following the flow? Was I foolishly following the path of my own creation or did I truly stumble onto the road where I was meant to be? I have disavowed so much, risen to meet the challenge in hopes that I arrive at the top of this mountain eventually, but I don’t even know if that is achievable for me. Have I hit my limit? Is this as far as I go?

I am struggling, and I don’t know what will help. I want to be alone but never left to myself. I have become the contradiction that I hoped to smooth out. Why is it so hard, and why does it hurt so much? And why does it feel like if I take a step back I would be giving it all away? I guess that is the burden of a dream and the weight of a heart. I can’t answer any of these questions, but all I can do is tell myself to keep trying.