The Settling

I’ve lost track of you. As an individual, as a group. Grand-scale socializing for this introvert peaked, and not even the trusty iPhone kept up. If we’ve connected recently, and the ball is in my court to get back to you, picture me dropping the ball, distracted as ever by the pulsing energy flying past.

Maybe I’m not supposed to “keep up.” Maybe I’m caught up in the relationship reciprocation game, the social network, the outstretched hand. Maybe conversations continue, and there is no end. Maybe I’m missing the jagged shimmer of turmoil.

In third grade, I was caught by the recess duty trying to set ants of fire with my eyeglasses. My energy now is focusing like that sunlight laser beam. Things and people are falling in and out of focus. For better or worse, something’s about to burst into flames. Steady hands, steady heat.

I’m back in university as of yesterday – a two year gap – and grateful for the first go-around. She said once, if you don’t start now, you never will. And I wouldn’t now, if I had to start from the beginning.

But I don’t, because I’m past the beginning. Past the bright and shiny, brain-drug phase of life where each smile feels like forever and always, and each heart prod is still an experiment with assumed-yet-unknowable results. I’m making peace with the new peace, the change, the acceptance, the settling. The settling. Not so suddenly, SETTLE no longer means or implies DEATH. It means, listen. Observe. Participate. Be yourself. Understand and love your Self. Your self – my self – is not a product of another being, though we can be driven by inspiration; love is not determined by another, though it often seems dependent. The Settling is not about place, time, or giving in. It is about steady hands, an internal knowing: one palm on my heart, the other open, upward.

I’ve lost all your coordinates, all your stars. But I’m beginning to find my own.