Archive for July 9th, 2008
Night of Graduation
Last night I read through the last 30 or so posts on this blog, and today I’ve been flipping through my sketchbook, which is rather my physical companion to this outlet. At the very end of the used pages this was written:
“I have a diploma, but I really feel no different from yesterday. I feel like in a week I’ll have to wake up and head back off to school and everything will be fine. I feel like in a week, everything will have reset and I’ll get another crack at things. This won’t happen, though, because it’s over. That version of me and time period in my life have died
Somewhere along the way though, I feel like I lost myself completely. Somewhere along the way I stopped being Josh Williams and turned into something else entirely, and I’m pretty sure I don’t like it. So I have two questions for myself: “what am I?” and “what now?” I can only hope that by identifying the questions I can now hope to seek the answers. Somewhere, somehow, some part of Josh Williams must have been preserved. He’s evident in a few people, from Will to Andrew to Mr. Herber, to Levy, to Ed & Kerby. I would like to find him, then I can take another crack at things.
The more tightly I hold on to things, the more they are likely to want to leave and to eventually escape. IN my life, one of the hardest tasks is letting go. Perhaps this is my lesson learn right here, right now. Learn to let go of all that you have to receive if back tenfold. Everything must change. This is the way of the world. It is not ours to know what could have been, only what is. We are given one story to write, and our ink is indelible. But once the paper is gone, we hope the words will remain, in legend and song, for eternity. We are given but one chance and one writing. We cannot hope to erase what is done-there is no going back. What’s done is done. It’s all accepting the past and coping with the future…but what do we do with the present? “All we get to decide is what to do with the time that is given us,”-Gandalf, the Fellowship of the Ring.
Only the present is open to us. Prepare for the future and learn from the past, but live in the present.
What have you learned, Josh Williams?
What are you preparing for, Josh Williams?
What are you living, Josh Williams?
Or more importantly in this life, “who have you learned from?”, “who are you preparing for?” and “who are you living for?” Here it is signed at 2am.
It continues on the back, the final page of the sketch book that is written on:
I’ve had a glimpse at the pages ahead: they are blank and waiting. I’ve read the pages behind: they are thick with mistakes and lessons. I am living in the current page. Who else is there with me? Is who why? Is it ever? Is it always? Things, knowledge, character, looks; even writing will change and fade away. It seems to me that people are more important now.”
Again it is signed, at 2:09am on June 2nd, 2008.
Beyond this page, nothing has been written. All of my sketches and writings have occurred on the previous pages, on empty spots between other adventures. It seems as though I was trying to reach backward in time, to fill that emptiness in my heart, of things that I had missed.
It hasn’t helped.
But beyond, there are things tucked into the book. New adventures to be had, new plans to enact, a life to live. I have a future to work on. If I remain on that page written more than a month ago, I remain in the past. A past in which I am not allowed to live, but am still trying. There’s a whole set of pages that I should be filling with my life, and am not.
I still haven’t answered those questions. I’ve tried, but haven’t gotten past, “there’s nothing to live for!” and worse, “there’s nobody to live for!” or “there’re only these few people to live for, but they’re going away!” It’s difficult, and incomplete, and a poor way to live.
Excuse me while I go fill some pages.
1 comment July 9, 2008
