When I was younger I thought that I knew every single thing that I wanted out of this life, but now as I get older I realize that I’m not so sure anymore about what I actually need out of it because some of the most beautiful things I have experienced are the ones I didn’t even know existed.
I guess I can now say that it is only through living life that I understand that knowing what you want out of it is o.k., but it’s really figuring out what the things that you don’t want out of it are, by experiencing them.
I’m at a crossroad in my life because one path leads me to a world of unknown, which I tend to gravitate to anyway, but with the unknown factor(s) there is another energy attached to it that doesn’t seem to contemplate me so well. That energy is the complete opposite of who I am. It’s darker, it can be too negative at times, grim and a tad too selfish for how I, myself, am with others. It doesn’t seem to appreciate or respect my time, and it doesn’t seem to want to change because I have enabled it and made it way too easy for it to continue on with its entitled ways.
And then there is the other path. The one where I stay behind, back in this fishbowl that seems to have been custom made just for me. Right here in the city that I was born in, with the air that I have always breathed and the streets that I have memorized every name of. It’s a path that I probably know too well because I have helped to shape it, and though it always brings me much excitement, happiness and love, it’s a path that my soul feels it needs to let go of in order to create my biggest masterpieces yet, as a writer.
So which way do I go? I press play on Tongue Tied by JEĀN CLĀUDE and decide to let the music just take me there, the same as it normally does and has dozens of times before.
On one side, there is me and NYC. There’s no one around and I am walking down Broadway from 69th Street heading to Columbus Circle. The day is a solid grey with hints of blue tint glowing off the buildings. A sheet of newspaper goes flying across the boulevard in front of me from East to West towards an empty Lincoln Center. I follow the sheet until it lands on the stairs and stops flying, and then I focus my gaze back downtown as I continue my walk. I pass the Time Warner Center and make a right back onto Broadway and walk towards Times Square. The streets are still empty and it’s the middle of the day, and not a car or another soul are around. I look at all the buildings that I have looked at with extreme detail hundreds of times before, and although they have always spoken so much to me before, they say absolutely nothing today.
I open my eyes and look down the other path, and I see a little boy running on the sand away from me laughing. I see him look up at me and smile in a way that melts my heart completely, and I see him hold me so tightly simply because he appreciates that I am right there, with and for him. And then I look outside at all that I have in front of me and realize that maybe it is I who have been just a little too selfish in my life this entire time. And I know, immediately, which path I have to go on.
And maybe life is simply about finding our Yangs.
UPDATE: We pick songs based on how they speak to us, and although i didn’t expect this one to talk to me the way it did, it honestly just helped me make a huge decision in life.