Today is what I would call a beautiful morning. The sunrise I caught a glimpse of and then went up to the roof to see was flourescent, followed by a cloudiness that makes me feel like this day is better than other days.
There was a women’s group run this morning towards the far end of Seaview. I don’t know what created a resistance in me to going. Partly because no one could pick me up in the morning - I often am selfishly more partial to activities that pose some convenience for me - but also because I didn’t want to bake in the sun. But this morning there is no harsh sun, and perhaps I would’ve loved to be running on the street right now.
This makes me think about the deliberation that takes place in my head before I set out to do something, specifically when I’m living a life of comfortable routine. And this routine encompasses not just what I do at home, but also my familiarity with a way of doing things outside of it. I guess this is why people travel or seek novelty - because it takes us outside of ourselves, beyond the scope of limitation that we live with, whether real or concocted.
Granted, it can be (and largely is) the nature of the place that encourages or discourages this coming out of self behaviour. Things like sense of safety, adventure, newness, and of course, wanting to get your money’s worth. I wonder if I can recreate that sense of newness and adventure within the supposed familiarity of life as I know it. Maybe what I’m really saying is that perhaps I could live my real life as a tourist. Not in the falling for gimmicks sense, but in a developing a taste for the unknown sense. Perhaps what it boils down to is allowing life to surprise me. And also allowing me to surprise myself sometimes.
Like here’s one thing that has recently caught me by surprise. In my near four years of studying with the halfest of asses at an institution I never felt like I belonged to, I made a new friend this semester. This semester being my last one. What I thought would be another four months of dragging my butt to class, has now turned to a funny bittersweet feeling of huh, perhaps I will miss this place, and these people, and this life. Why did I make a friend now, at the very end? Was it for the purpose of instilling this sense in me? Whatever it was, it took me by surprise, and I’m not complaining about it.
I think with time and age I’ve built thin layer upon layer of understanding of how things work - both in the world and in myself. And maybe that does have the effect of tending to block out some level of experience. Like a thing as simple as wanting to go for a run on a nice morning, and rather than putting on my shoes and going, being deterred by the very real memories of experiences past of a lingering male gaze, or a too-friendly park guy, or no one being there to take the neighbor’s car out.
I don’t blame myself for the hesitation, that part of me that knows it’s easier and also quite pleasant to not do the thing I am pondering. But this also makes me think about something else that’s been on my mind, and that is that if I can’t have the big, grand things in this life (assuming that I even want them) then let me at least allow myself the small things. I understand and I value the familiarity of safety, of routine. But I’d like to also let there be room for surprise.