Unless you're under your own steam, you're just debris - stuff floating.

There's always a point where things change. There's a shift and you're heading in a different direction. But sometimes you end up not going anywhere at all. It's a dislocation and a deviation from the road you were on.

I grow up, get older, find a broader view, but I don't necessarily get anywhere.

Nearly 3 years ago, my childhood home burnt down. It was the year I finished school.That was my dislocation, my point where things changed. Everyone has one. Hopefully you find yourself on a new track pretty quickly, otherwise you just end up drifting. That year, I moved out of home [here I refer to the concept, not the physicality]. I moved across the country for university and for a man I'd known a week.

It was pure reaction to dislocation. For a while the force and shock of bouncing off the brick wall that had sprung up in front of me, propelled me in the opposite direction. There was momentum, and excitement - although it faded fast. Being disconnected means there's nowhere to land.When there's nowhere to move on from, you can't go anywhere.
Once the momentum faded I turned, found something i recognised, a flow I had been in before and let it take me back to somewhere I had a base [People who grew up in stagnant country towns will understand the spirit crushing feeling of 'going home']. That path deviated from everything I had planned, but it was the only footing I had, the only place I could touch the bottom.
I was going backwards.
I stalled and stood still.
Disconnected, unmotivated its easy to get off track. Unless you're under your own steam, you're just debris*. And I drifted, still barely connected to anything.

The thing about drifting, you don't go far but you will eventually run aground, you reconnect with something solid and it's never a gentle landing. Conveniently, you're usually 398443 miles away, in the wrong direction, in the middle of nowhere. But it's another footing, somewhere stronger to take off from. And at that point you look around, you stand up and see where you are, and where you can go.

I'm moving away again. I'm starting uni again. I stalled, became debris. I guess drifting has served it's purpose, making small connections and finding my base here. I'll always come back. But right now I have that momentum,and it needs to take me elsewhere first. Big fish in little ponds don't really go anywhere. Things are bleak when you're drifting but they're ugly if you're standing still.


Not all posts will be a serious load of self indulgent over thinking like this. Nor will they contain so much metaphorical frivolity. This is just my footing, so I know where I'm coming from and what I'm getting to.





*I stole that line from Tim Winton's Cloudstreet.