Embracing Temporality

Vincent Van Gogh once said, " I wish they would take me as I am."


Fifteen year old me started an essay about isolation with this quote. Fifteen year old me sure didn't deserve an A on that essay. I think I spent a lot of time thinking this quote held an importance. It doesn't. And there is an obvious consequence that comes with caring about who you wish understands you. Perhaps I have spent to much time fixating on the ridiculous feeling of being binded by invisible constraints. I am stuck in Dublin due to a contract that I signed, that I signed so feverishly, with an attitude that I could make no wrong decision. For the past  months a pressure of living presently was consumed by the living state of temporality. Again fixating on the ridiculous conquest that at some point in my life everything would be concrete, a fact that I use to believe and still do believe, was and is unobtainable. How did this anxiety slip through the threshold? I spent today walking to Parnell Street with an urgency to get somewhere, but all I had was a single destination, to just get a few blocks away from my house for some fresh air. As I turned to walk back a homeless meth head hassled me for a cigarette, following me for a block yelling " No ladies, no real ladies exist today" ( perhaps a response to Beyonce as to why there is an overabundance of single ladies existing?). And for a second I cared, I wanted to prove to him I am a lady, that I am substantial, I have a heart that beats and can be kind to others. But for a cigarette I was letting my dignity be questioned by a clearly psychotic weening off of nicotine homeless man. I then realized I had to choose, to either ignore him and keep walking, or turn around and say something. But instead I looked around. I actually froze my own situation to quickly make a calculation of who was around, how many other men, how many other women, if children from the housing renewal projects were leaning over balconies or standing in small crowds in the allies. And even in this moment I had enough time to question why I was calculating, in this moment I was allowing myself to filter my own reaction to this man, determined by my surroundings. So I stopped and faced him, drool dripping from his chapped bloody lips, and quietly said

"Thank you for being such a gentleman".