CONTENT WARNING: Some Strong Language
My Comfortable Pain is that I don’t know anymore and I think I’m comfortable with that. I have always been the type of person who likes to plan and preplan and then, I get nervous that I haven’t checked the plan. I go around and around in my head until my stomach is in my throat and my ass at the same time (I’m a Virgo). I often feel violently self-aware. Like I’m viewing my own life through a camera; a third-party lens viewing my actions like I’m not the one making my decisions. I’m simply playing a game of Episode, a choose-your-own-adventure. It makes everyday decisions feel like an anchor on your foot, rocks in your pocket as you sink deeper. It’s similar to the stomachaches given to Chidi Adagonye of The Good Place. The choice, the control or lack of it, is enough to make me sick. I’ve always carried this fear of choice and need for control with me. Like a needy Tamogachi; constantly beeping and screaming for my attention and overwhelming my thoughts..
When I was at a very vulnerable and tired stage in my life (8th grade) I heard SZA’s album Ctrl for the first time. During this time, I heard the album begin with its iconic feature from SZA’s mom and her wise words: “That is my greatest fear. That is if I lost control. Or did not have control. Things would just, you know it would be fatal”. Later in the album, “We take things, and my influence so far, and then it’s out of my hands. And, you know, while as I said it can be scary, it can also be a little bit comfortin’. Because I’ve learned that when I get to that point, and I can acknowledge. “Okay, you know, Audrey, that’s as much as you can do”, I can actually let it go.” I’m not completely sure what this did to my brain, but it changed something in me. Not immediately but over a long period, like how the ocean gradually wears away a bottle into sea glass. From this, I’ve learned that I don’t know and as of right now that’s okay.
As of right now, I feel as though I have been in that exact ocean, floating in my sailboat surrounded by fog. Quiet, alone; trying to keep the peace over rocky waters. However, every now and then, the clouds part and I feel like I’m able to see a peak of my future. Just slightly over the horizon. A future that feels so real and promised to me, just out of reach.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t need all the answers. Right now I’m at a time where I may be lost at sea, but I’m okay with that. Similar to SZA’s transition in her later album SOS, I am no longer in this reclusive, passive, indecisive space. I’m tired of constant negativity brought on by others and I’m learning to be selfish and spontaneous. Like a single flare shot in the middle of a quiet night. As the woman herself says in my favorite song, “Smoking on my Ex Pack”, “I’m screaming back of the bus trick.” The entirety of SOS is a love letter to yourself. It is the fight for yourself; claiming what’s yours before someone claims it for you. It is far past time for me to continue to put others before myself. My biggest fear of the future and the lack of control of it are still there (which I learned is called chronophobia super fun), but now I guide myself through the fog on my own.
I may not know anymore but at this point, my ignorance and my self-awareness of it is my freedom.
