Yesterday I realized that my life is a mishmash of things I've dug up and slapped together with Scotch tape. I live a flimsy lifestyle that I keep trying desperately to make more substantial. Nothing grounds me. Nothing pulls the pieces together.
I'm kneeling on a slippery rock next to a small tide pool with water so deep and dark I can't see beneath the surface. Everything I have has come from this pool because I stuck my hand in and grabbed it. The things that could potentially nourish me, I keep, no matter how small or weird.
I can't retain everything I catch. Most creatures bite and sting and I have to let go. Sometimes, even when I scoop it out of the water thinking it's finally mine, the creature wiggles out of my grasp and flops wildly until it plops into the next pool down.
The things I have kept are easy to keep. They are small and benign. They practically jumped into my hands. I hope, desperately and in vain, that they will grow if I nourish them just enough. But initially the smaller creatures don't nourish me, so they take a back seat in my mind as I search blindly for more, for better, for anything else that can supplement what I have.
My life at this point is frozen at the edge of this tide pool. The deeper I search, the more trinkets I find but cannot have. Most of them hide at the bottom after they realize I'm up there trying to catch them, not knowing I only want to make it into something even better. Every time I stick my arm into the pool it becomes more painfully clear that I can't pull enough trinkets to glue into a cohesive life. My conflict is, I don't want to abandon what I have already collected. I want for them to grow into something wonderful.
But it's not enough. I need a bigger body of water to search through, or better tools to help me keep my grip on what I want. I feel trapped on my rock. Something needs to change.
