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| Photo by Gia Oris. |
A long time ago, I came across this keychain that simply says, "start where you are" on it and saved the link.
Every once in a while, I see it again and think, "oh yeah, that's a good idea."
It's hard though, right? It's hard because chances are that I don't want to be where I am. I want to be over there and if I start where I am that's admitting that I'm not over there already. Or maybe I've heard a really compelling story about someone who started somewhere totally different and then got there, and maybe I should start where that person started, too? Because it seemed to work for them?
Or mayyyyybe some weird part of me wants to start somewhere further back. Somewhere sort of like rock bottom (but not actually rock bottom, because that might be a little too unpleasant), where I have no choice but to go up.
But I'm not in any of those places. I am where I am, and for some reason, that can be really hard to accept.
I do believe that where we are truly is the only place we can be. It's like in La La Land when they do the whole flashback/flashforward to what would have happened if our dancing lovers had stayed together. It's a version of their lives that could have happened, but it's definitely not what did happen. It's nothing more than a story. (I mean, the whole movie is a story, but you know what I mean.)
The same goes for our lives. All the alternate versions of my life where I could have become a dancer or told that person how I really felt or worked harder or worked less or went to a different school or taken a different job - they are stories. I can live in those fictions if I want to, but they aren't real. They aren't where I am. I can't start there.
I have to start here. And that's pretty good, too.
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