When Life Feels Like It's Moving Backwards

photo by Winona Grey

To be honest, moving backwards is my greatest fear. At times, it feels like every victory has been so hard fought that I don’t know if I’d have the energy or courage to fight for it again.

Every new success comes with this terror - is this it? Is this as successful as I’ll ever get? I worry that I’ll never achieve any kind of comfort or ease or even just stability.

I’ve never considered myself to be terribly status driven, but when it comes to music I have something to prove. If I hit middle age without hitting SOME milestone, how will anyone know if I’ve tried. Will it matter?

. When you don’t have family as your legacy (and that remains a big no thank you over here) it’s easy to put pressure on your other creative ventures as the way you want to carve your name into reality. But maybe a leave no trace philosophy is better, especially considering how often people’s attempts at legacy have perpetuated things like racism and sexism - projectin them into the future; or actively caused harm to this planet.

It makes me think of a Lore episode I watched recently about Walter Freeman - the person who popularized the icepick lobotomy. In his pursuit of legacy he left a lot of (mostly women) , well, lobotomized - he also lost a child, distroyed his mariage, and ultimately was unwilling to acknowledge the harm the procedure caused.

When there’s no race to win, no mark to leave, the very concept of forward and backward dissipates. As Theodore Roosevelt said - “Comparison is the theif of joy”, even, at times, when it’s yourself you are comparing yourself to.

As we look at the stories that keep us holding on tight, trying to control things and as we figure out what we are ready to let decay, what we find on the other side is freedom. Not for the sake of getting or acheiving some milestore or proving anything to anyone - but simply because it is where we truly thrive.