Touching your toes is enlightenment.

Given that writing makes me happy (or at least having written makes me happy), why do I do so little of it? Thinking fluid thoughts used to feel like it was easy. Now, of course, I’m not sure if it truly was easy or if I was so un-self-conscious that I didn’t realize how hard I was actually working. Growing older has had a lot of benefits, including more self-confidence (not total self-confidence, but at least more than the flimsy amount I had before). But with a lot more self-reflection has also come a lot more anxiety and fear and over-thinking. I used to be insecure around people but secure in my thoughts; now I’m insecure in my thoughts but can fake security around people. To an extent this is useful: it’s easier to exist in the work world when one is secure around others. But I also feel a profound disconnect from something that feels innate to me: I can’t quite say why or how, but I feel removed from my own thoughts, as if I don’t have any opinions or deeply held beliefs anymore.

Today at the grocery store I was looking at some pre-made meals and one of them was vegan except for it had honey; ten years ago I’d have immediately put it down and walked away, my convictions were that strong. But today I made the calculation that I had a lot of work to do and didn’t have the time to read every ingredients list and made myself accept eating honey today at least. But now I feel mad at that version of me for having sold out my true convictions: I truly believe that honey is a byproduct of animal cruelty and I don’t want to participate in such practices. Yet, here we are.

Maybe the story can be considered from a more charitable perspective, one where I recognize that it is perhaps better to have a flexible set of ideals that can deal with a range of situations, including one where I make the determination that the cruelty of the practice of beekeeping weighed against not eating should be resolved in favor of eating. But I still resolve tomorrow to try again and to try harder to have convictions and to abide by them. Of course I have opinions, about the easy things, though: like, climate change and sexual assault. What I wish for myself, on this the 30th anniversary of my birth, is that in the next year I think more critically and feel more deeply. May it be a year of learning and forgiveness.