Haibun: Transform
I find myself tending to preserve my emotions in dreams of what could be if things were different. Growing up, I could be found daydreaming of far off places: riding horses, winning a baseball game, or maybe fighting wars. My head in my hands staring off into the adventure. Missing my teacher’s lesson; never there, always someplace else.
So now, I escape differently, but still the same. Now I can get lost in the details of the project or in questions of what could happen, prepping instead of doing. Instead of doing the job and risking failure, I prep and I prep some more. Or maybe it’s telling myself I need to know more so I read or take an online class instead of doing. But in the end, it isn’t honoring the task at hand, instead it’s me remaking another task into something that isn’t in front of me. And so, I still escape.
But when I am paying attention, I know that I feel safer in the prep or the daydream or the learning than I do taking the risk by doing something. Deep down I know, for sure, that the daydream is the safest of all because I’m in control of everything I imagine.
Yet at the end of the wasted day when I can’t justify what I’ve done, there’s a sinking feeling. It feels so tiring and I go to bed restless and unfulfilled. So the escape, originally meant for comfort, becomes disdain. What I wanted betrayed me.
On the days when I recognize my escape techniques but get to work anyways, I sleep well because I’ve worked hard. And that feeling of being in control cannot touch the satisfaction of working hard.
where wood was once known, redone
summer moves to own
