Balance

 a state of equilibrium or equipoise

Sometimes, I get into a funk, you probably know the funk that I’m talking about; the type where one day, you’re silently swimming along in the vastness of the clear-turquoise, sparkling ocean in which your arms glide effortlessly, the heat from the midday sun embraces your body like a motherly hug and life, your life, in its essence, is so very peaceful. And then, all of a sudden, a huge cavernous, rip-roaring wave hammers you side on, and you’re left spluttering, choking and frenziedly paddling in pointless circles.

Yeah, this is how I feel today.

I’m in a funk, people, and I’m not sure how to get out of it.

At the beginning of the week, I felt like I had the world at my feet, creativity flowed through my fingers like tiny grains of the smoothest sand, and I felt excited, excited about nothing in particular, but excited all the same. I ran with an exhilarating energy, kicking the autumn leaves into an airy abyss and practising mindfulness; taking the time to notice colours and scents and sights and people and statues and squirrels scurrying by. I couldn’t keep the joyousness inside, it surely would have burst my heart, and so I smiled and chatted to the curious child on the train and opened the door for people (‘no, no, after you’) and instead of becoming enraged as I walked behind the trundling tourists snapping photos, I too, chose to marvel at the London sights and slipped into their shoes for just that second. I allowed myself to get lost in the reverie of my mind, I dreamt of becoming a writer, of spending my days hunched over my laptop, mugs of half-drunk coffee littering my desk in an office packed to the hilt with books and unedited post-it-note musings and old records, stacked one on top of the other like a musical-rainbow tower.

And now, today, I look back, at the merry-go-round of that moment. And it’s gone. It’s out of my grasp. It’s impossible for my mind to re-conjure, no matter how hard I try. I’m left with a gaping void in the centre of my chest and I feel like I’m flicking through a photo album of empty pictures, I know they were once there, I stuck them there myself, arranging them neatly and adding captions as not to forget the time, the date, the place. Yet all that is left is 4 semi-dry balls of glue, one for each corner of the photo.