Face the Future

How to describe what is to come? I stand barefoot on asphalt cooled to freezing by congealed mist, staring into the gray ribbons that twist in penetrating light. I rock forward on my toes, shivering, straining to see more than shoulders of trees and bushes emerge from the swirls. I can’t be the only one to feel this way, as if the thought of plans, of the future, grow an instant cavity in my chest.

I notice the chill in my fingertips, the flash of my rings in the light. One, twisting in infinite loops, I bought in the colorful market of Portobello Road on my senior trip. We each got one to remember the cries and chaos and cold, three girls wandering around the city, losing and finding themselves.

Above it rests a fake diamond, handed to me by my grandmother in the house-like-a-home with the view of an ocean of trees. That one is from Venezuela, the half-remembered dream. I ran down the rainforest beach through clouds of butterflies, and read in the corner of the schoolyard rather than kicking a ball through clouds of dirt. The scuffle sounds in my mind, complete with cries and grunts and obscuring dust.

The largest ring has had the largest impact on me. I bought it at the artisan fair here in Tunis last year as one of a set, sharing its scrolling patterns with my mom. It encapsulates almost seven years of growth and turmoil in this tiny nation, hemmed by sea and sand. Before we moved, I had many shallow friendships with people I greeted and talked to but never really knew. I’ve shared so much with people here: breaking down in the Sahara without AC, blasting music through the endless olive groves, sharing stories around fire with cold sand between my toes and the inky sky scrolled out overhead. Strange how a band of metal can connect to so many memories and relationships in my mind.

The last and simplest graces my ring finger, the circle of circles handcrafted and purchased during my time in the Austrian Alps. I don’t yet have the clarity that comes with time for that one; I feel as if my nose is up against the brushstrokes as I long for those sharp crystal peaks. Friendships sped up there. I saw the intensity of human emotions and experience, the differences and similarities in the storylines of our lives, how easy it can be to cry for the pain of others. I felt more intensely the lesson I have learned as I grew: humanity was made for relationship and community.

I spend hours reading and reflecting, writing and painting. I am supposed to be this wonderfully self-aware person but for all the time I spend turned inward, all I know is that I do not know myself. I don’t see the pain of others like I should, I don’t feel that needle sharply enough. All this introspection leaves me land-locked and lost in confusion. If I can’t figure myself out, what chance do I have of capturing life in words, of connecting? When my own soul is only a tangle of mismatched emotions, sealed by desperation, how do I move forward? How do I reach for the hands of others when I can’t see them through the fog?

There are too many questions. I wring myself out with them, but they still clamor in my chest. I type them, write them, paint them, but they remain.

As I began the process this year of stepping out on my own, still holding deliberately the strings of my past, I recognized the beauty of mystery, of unknown. When I was still that child with liquid brown eyes and buck teeth, I thought eighteen-year-olds knew everything. I look back and see the same questions that I still carry. Am I different? Will I change? Will I know myself? Will I ever understand the whys of God’s creation?

Everything changes, but many questions remain. As I pursued answers this year, I met people with more certainty, with less, with years pursuing answers. I am never the only one with these questions; I never have to struggle under them alone. There is some comfort to be found in that.