Slipping
It’s the question mark appearing in my every action. Once again, I feel completely and utterly uncertain of who I am. It’s like stepping out of a steaming hot shower to find a foggy mirror, only able to faintly see the silhouette staring back—until you wipe it with your hand to reveal what’s hiding. But that ability to reveal feels like it’s missing.
The things that once grounded me, that gave me a sense of certainty—like writing, the very thing that felt fundamental to my being—are now under question. Am I even good enough for this? Everything I write falls short of my expectations, of my desire to reveal something. Every time I try, I feel like I’ve lost it. Lost the part of myself that kept me together.
I feel it in my art too. The blank canvases that hide behind my desk, stare at me in disapproval. I don’t even engage with makeup the way I used to—I barely touch it anymore. It’s not laziness, or maybe it is, but it’s more than that. It takes effort I can’t seem to summon. Maybe it’s just my borderline, but even my journal entries feel different. As though the hand that writes isn’t my own, as though what appears on the page is distant—never quite capturing what I feel or want to say.
I’m meeting parts of myself I thought I had left behind long ago. And it fills me with a certain fear I can’t shake. I feel detached from my studies, from the subjects that once brought me joy and excitement. Maybe it’s because I’m back home again. Maybe it’s the cutback in therapy sessions. Maybe it’s the overloaded semesters I keep putting myself through. I don’t know. Maybe it’s all of it.
The stability I felt a year ago—the alignment that once felt unshakable—now seems like a distant dream. And even my attempts to bring it back fall short. Do I not want it badly enough? Do I not do as much as I could? Or do I, and I just discredit myself? Again, I’m not sure. It’s a mental loop that has a hold on me.
I like to believe this is just a momentary hiccup. Surely, I’ll get through it and feel like myself again. Surely, I’ll grow. Maybe this is the step I need to take to get there—the transformation I keep longing for. Maybe this is the darkness I have to fall into before I find the door. Maybe there’s meaning in this feeling of meaninglessness that keeps creeping in. I have to believe there is. That belief is what gives me purpose, what keeps me moving forward, even in this uncertain time when I feel disconnected from everything.
And the irony is, I finally feel like I’ve conveyed what I’ve been feeling. Connecting with the disconnect reminded me of my favorite thing about life—how paradoxical it is. The more I longed to connect, the more disconnected I felt. It took me a moment to accept what I was feeling: a shaky sense of self and a wavering connection to the world around me. I felt like a floating particle with no home to return to, no origin to trace back to. A concept, a deeply abstract idea.
Fearing this feeling, I felt an anxious duty to reject it. This can’t be. I have changed. I have grown. I have tasted a stability I once thought impossible. The fear of having to accept that I had slipped only made me slip further.
But the paradox of accepting what is turns it into what is no longer. Because as I write this, I feel a connection sparking. Like the telephone wires have been tuned properly, and suddenly, I can reach a signal. I am not lost in a dark, stormy ocean—the lighthouse appears in the distance, and I find the faintest direction to steer toward.
Periods of change can be so overwhelming that you lose sight of the ground you’ve built beneath you. But it’s still there. Acceptance can be so scary sometimes, but it is often the only thing that brings you peace. Slowly I have felt myself awake again. Like the dusty windows cleared for the sun to pierce through and brighten up. I feel myself discovering who I am all over again.
The uncertain brings forward the possibility to create. The nature of being is we are always becoming. We are in a constant state of flux. The ocean wave that comes to lift you up eventually pulls right back. But acceptance feels like floating on the ocean, surrendering to its current. Like the debris stirred up by each wave, we are never truly settled; we are always shifting, rising, and becoming.
Cover Photo by Michael Obstoj. Edited by Genevieve Zakosky.