This Is What It Feels Like To Settle

You are treading. Flailing your limbs to keep your head afloat just enough for words to leave your tired lips. “Someday when…, If he ever…, when I can…, if she does…, soon they will…” You cling to the thoughts of the future because the stinging grip of your reality will surely have you drowning in the morose place that you float.

You are trudging. Dragging your feet through freshly poured cement. Each motion so exaggerated, so bolstered. Every fiber of your being is pulling through, exerting an immense amount of energy to make miniscule marks of progress.

You are shrouding. Avoiding any source that may question the strange grey that you have become. Dodging opportunities for questions surrounding your new dullness.

Your lackluster smile becomes painfully obvious to those who love you.

You shirk from sources of query. You are diminishing. Big dreams that once waxed in the power of your bright spirit begin to wane in the wake of your muted tone. A once sunny and vibrant sky, your adaptation to circumstance has cast thick, heavy, greyness over you.

You are mistrusting. Apprehension creeps into your decisions, unnoticed at first. It manifests slowly. Coming in pangs of uncertainties. Maybe I am just an overachiever. Maybe I do expect too much from those I love. Maybe my definitions of happiness and success are idealistic at best.

And then, you are roused. Uprooting every possible situation to find the cause of this dejection. First, you scratch the surface. Raking your mind. Is it this? Is it that?

You pluck the petals – releasing each source of negativity.

And finally, you are left with one single petal. He loves me not. You return to the ground; one singular seed.