I run with this. I am perfectly happy to feign feigning modesty and tell everyone, aw, shucks, nice of you to notice how incredibly brave and outrageous I am.
Unfortunately, I am neither of these things, really.
Dear everyone, I was not being brave. I was being a bit of a flimsy wuss.
I am happy to leap over waterfalls. I enjoy scuba-diving and navigating uncharted bush. Being lost in foreign cities at night is a rush. But when confronted with the idea of committing to a return date, I hollered and found a dark corner to shiver in for a few hours. If you want to say I'm brave, don't look to my noodle-splattered plane ticket with no return. That was an act of fear and of defiance. To book a ticket for a set day, at a solidified time in the future? Don't try to tell me that isn't scary.
But of course, people honestly don't think it is. It's a different kind of fear that people have now, and I think it's something like the fear of possibility.
There's a cliff that I'm always looking over, and down there below me is the long and painful fall to the realm of fully-fledged commitment issues, all spread out and rambling. There are people down there who commit to nothing, except doing whatever they feel at that very moment. They like it, though. They're just chillin'. And way back behind me in the tree line there are neat rows of those organised diary-keeping types, booked firmly into appointments ten months in advance.
I'm not the only one wandering around. Here on the edge, teetering, it's rather comfortable. Sometimes I throw my arm out and the wind nearly catches me. That's for kicks. I find myself wandering further back, too. Doing mad things like committing each semester to complete my coursework or booking plane tickets more than a month in advance. But I always return to the edge and I look over. And I gain approval from neither party, because I'm not doing either lifestyle quite right. Advocates from each side try to help me. They both believe so firmly that they've got it figured, this life thing. Who am I to say, having never done either option properly, but I kind of think the people down the bottom have a better grip on what matters.
I read an article in one of those free newspapers they give out on the tube that leave ink on my hands. It was about how people in London all have diaries that are filled with business meetings and dentist dates and weekend trips and prescribed relaxation days at the spa, for months and months -- sometimes years -- into the future. I read it and think, you, my dear, darling people, run the risk of being miserably tied down. Spontaneity is thrilling; it's memorable; and, importantly, it's rarely disappointing, as the expectations have little time to build. I see, reading this article, how people see my ticket as an act of courage. But I still disagree. It is very courageous of you to book all that in and assume that nothing will go wrong, no illness befall you, no whim tickle your fancy. I am in awe of your commitment. I am in awe that you manage to have fun, when your fun is given a span of hours in which to sit each week. To me, you are much braver than my one-way trip was. Your diary is an ode to your bravery. But let it not hold you back from standing on the edge.
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