The Choice that Looks Simple
The wettest summer day I can remember — and yet the sun shone the entire time, the humidity climbing until the air itself felt like something to push through. We trained hard. Sweat poured from me for hours, steadily and without apology, like the flowing river I keep telling myself I want to become. It was tough, physical, demanding work. It was also beautiful. I was fully alive in every step, which is not something I take lightly or say carelessly.
The body was present. The mind was somewhere else entirely.
Right now my mind is spinning — not toward anything in particular, just following the confusion that the physical world keeps delivering to my door with the reliability of a very efficient courier. Never late. Always consistent. The package changes; the arrival does not.
The strange thing is that I know exactly how to make it stop. I have known for a while. I simply haven't found the strength to do it yet — or perhaps, if I am being more honest than comfortable, I haven't fully chosen to. Because somewhere underneath the restlessness, I think I might actually like it. The teetering. The edge between peace and chaos, that narrow strip of ground where everything feels most vivid and most alive. Maybe that is simply how I am built. Desiring what I know I could have, while choosing, again and again, to stay just close enough to the fire to feel its heat without quite deciding to step back from it.
I always say I don't know the answer. But that isn't true, and I think I owe myself the honesty of admitting it. The answer is not complicated. A few decisions — real ones, followed through — and the spinning stops. That is the catch, and I know it. My weakness is not ignorance. It is desire. The particular and persistent desire to keep all the doors open a little longer than I should.
When I consider how much has changed — physically, mentally, in the way I move through the world and understand myself — I genuinely laugh. The person standing here now and the person who first walked through the school doors are not the same. Not even close. That transformation is real, and it matters, and I don't want to diminish it.
But I am beginning to understand something new, and it is this: I will only ever be as strong as my weakest points. And those points will only remain weak for as long as I allow them to. Not fate. Not a circumstance. Permission — given quietly, repeatedly, by me.
The choice is mine. It has always been mine.
Indulge desire, or honour the highest version of myself that I know exists and am still becoming.
It seems like a simple choice. It is the hardest one I know.