My life at the moment is at the intersection where exams meet “what will I do with the rest of my life” panic, which combined with the (near) end of my doals reread leaves me feeling very emo. I’ve caught myself thinking “I wish I had something to be brave about” before today when that post about how being brave is being afraid but doing it anyway appears on my dash. Except that now that I do have something to be brave about..... all I want to do is retreat into my duvet, never to come out. /1
Realistically, I know that neither choice will lead to an apocalyptic outcome. I have something to gain from both, very different things maybe but things nonetheless. And yet? Thinking about it has me on the verge of tears. It really doesn’t help that I don’t have a goal? I don’t know what I want to DO. (These tribulations are career related.) I thought I did. And then I was presented with the opportunity to try my hand at a career I’ve had in the back of my mind for as long as I can remember /2
And suddenly it’s the last thing I want to do. I’m Harry in doals if that Harry were interested in baking, being a vet and the Argus but pursuing none of them. Why can’t I muster that enthusiasm? Why does the idea of taking some initiative and doing something, anything at all, so paralyse me? I swear I haven’t always been like this. *big sigh* Anyway, the last chapter of Nick’s book is really speaking to me today so I’ve come to you with all of this, I’m sorry. I hope you’re having a good day /3
And if you’re not, please know that story has done more for me than I’ll ever be able to thank you for and I am incredibly grateful that I found it and gave it a go back in January. ❤️❤️❤️ /4
Hello, I’m sorry there’s anything in your life which is making you tearful 💛. I think it’s easy when you’ve been in education to focus on exams and it makes seeing beyond them, envisaging which option works for you, really hard because it’s such a different kind of challenge to those you’ve been facing, the ones your brain is used to. In those circumstances, all the potential options for Afterwards that you try on in your head can seem as ill-fitting as those impulse ASOS sale purchases that deep down you knew were discounted because they wouldn’t suit anybody, ever. Which makes you start thinking things like, ‘this thing I thought I wanted since forever, is it really for me??’ ‘am I really the kind of person who can do that??’ ‘what do I even WANT out of life???’ Faced with questions like that, mentally retreating to the safety of the duvet is the only truly rational response, frankly. And you’ve probably been working hard and been stressed so you deserve a nap. Or two. Or nine. So if you need some duvet time, here’s me giving you permission to take it.
It’s a rough time, honestly. Fuck, when I finished uni, in a panic, I applied to join the Secret Service and for a job in a dry cleaners and to do a PhD on the same day. Did I want to do any of those things? Not really. I ended up sliding into one of them for a bit because it seemed the most sensible and then quitting when a fly dropped dead and fell out of the air in front of me and I decided to interpret it as a message from the universe. Like Nick said, any decision you make now isn’t the watertight-holds-forever-blood-oath-with-Hades sort, you can always quit and start again if you need to (prophetic insect death element entirely optional, probably).
Does that make choosing any easier? Does it make enthusiasm spring from the well of inertia? Not really, but maybe it lessens the stakes a little if you can tell yourself ok I’m not sure about this but what if I try it for a month or two and see how I feel then. Or what if I give past!me who wanted this thing a chance to see if they still do. Or what if I give me who thinks they want to pass on this permission to pass on this and see if I regret it. Or what if I decide to do nothing, to do neither of these and see what shows up when they’re not there. Sometimes the only way you can really make a decision is to make it and then live with it for a bit, see how it sits.
One thing Nick didn’t say to Harry but Niall might’ve, one late night in the barn when Harry had shadows under his eyes and kept staring at his phone not texting Nick even though Niall had told him to just do it already you’ll feel better and you know I’m right 14 times, is:
“You can’t make a wrong decision about your own life, Harry. Don’t - don’t roll your eyes, you can’t. Because it’s your life. And you can only live it once, in one direction, one little bit at a time, and that means you can’t know how things will turn out or what the perfect way to go about something is. Any decision you make, it’ll be right in the moment you make it. And if two weeks later, it’s not right anymore, well, you can worry about that when you get there. It’s like that old saying about the two roads in a wood, one going one way and the other the other, and one is full of brambles and the other’s nicely mowed - only instead of going on your way, you’re just standing on the crossroads, which is always the worst bit of anywhere. You take one step in any direction - any direction, you don’t have to even pick one of the paths, you’ve a whole fucking wood to trample through in any way you want to - and you’re already better off than you were when you didn’t know which way to go.”
Harry had no idea what he meant, went back to staring at his phone, wishing he knew what to say to the empty window or that Nick is typing… would magically appear.
But a week or so later, he ran into Liam, who told him about his audition, and when an idea glimmered, he wasn’t as scared of it as he might’ve been if Niall hadn’t filled his head with bramble woods and signposts he was free to ignore.
