Tempting Fate

Originally posted September 13th 2023

I had a very silly thought this morning: “If I don’t meet the love of my life this year then Slow Show can’t be our song”. I was thinking about the line “You know I dreamed about you/For twenty-nine years before I saw you” which then made me think of the Carly Rae Jepson’s Call Me Maybe line “Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad”. The songs are tonal opposites but both are objectively incredibly romantic. The idea that your longing for someone is in fact for a particular person, not just a vacant need for affection. But also, I don’t think I need the pressure to meet the love of my life within the next year. That’s also a lot to ask of strangers.

I’ve met many people who believe in fate, that we are tied by an invisible string to one another. I’ve always had a hard time believing that. I’m more of the notion that people just tend to like each other. I think fate has too close a link with god and freewill or lack thereof. I once read that in Greek mythology, only some people had a destiny. That most people were free from the gods meddling, that destiny was a burden. But I suppose you could argue whether or not a burden is such a bad thing? Because life is a burden, we are burdens. Or in more 2000s terms, we’ve all got baggage. Which is a much more materialistic way of looking at ourselves. We’re just bags of things. Anyway, fate and baggage, are arguable. But I like to think about them. Fate is such a grand word. Was it my fate to spend this Sunday drenched by the rain because we needed carrots from the shop?

I’ve been thinking about fate because I’ve been thinking about what the hell I’m doing with my life. Friends are having babies and getting married, their lives look from the outside like they’re doing what we all are supposed to do. And I am incredibly envious. I will not lie, if you told 20 year old me that at 29 I’d be an unemployed, single, agoraphobe her reaction wouldn’t be jumping for joy. It is very hard not to be envious of others. I know I’m only seeing it from pictures and curated updates. I think 29 is like the ultimate baby fever age as well and I live in a neighbourhood full of cute families. But from a pragmatic standpoint, I don’t actually want those things. I want what they represent: security and stability. I’m currently in a very lonely situation, I know it wont always be this, but I’m here at the minute. So naturally I’m seeing the grass as greener on the other side. I wonder if one day I’ll look back at this time and be jealous of myself. Of her time.

Maybe I should start believing in fate. I suppose the idea is you only have so much control and to give some of it up to the universe or god or whatever, takes the pressure off a bit. Maybe one day something will happen that I cannot not believe in it. I would like to be surprised. Things tend to play out how I imagine which makes it all kind of boring. Or maybe I’m depressed. Even when something vaguely exciting happens I tend to just be like “Yep, figured”. I remember as a teen, concerts were so exciting and then as I got older I started to get bored after the first song. Is it because I got used to it? Is it harder to feels things as you get older because they don’t make as much of an impact? And what does this have to do with fate? Is fate the promise of change?

This week I’d been for the most part, terribly anxious. But rather than sit around all day like I usually would in the past, I poured myself into painting, not to distract myself, my mind was still racing with worry and needless self-consciousness, but because it felt like the right thing to do. To connect with my body and rather than feeling sorry for myself, I got on with my days. That is a change. I always want to freeze, to stay in place, but I’m trying really hard, this week in particular, to change that. I don’t want to keep doing what I’m doing, and maybe it’s fate that I suddenly am implementing that. Why not.

I wasn’t going to write anything this week. I felt awful and tired and anxious and like I had nothing to say. Earlier, I decided I’d post a quick bit about how I wanted to be somebody else and generally all around “bad vibes”. In actuality, it’s just been a very uneventful week and I haven’t read or watched anything that I felt like writing about. I do want to say though, we got to get Daniel Day Lewis out of retirement so he can star in a Moby Dick mini series, could you imagine?! You know he’d kill it. I want to become a director purely so I can make this mini series (and to make a horror movie, obviously). Reading Moby Dick has been very fun, there is something to reading a book that I can’t possibly finish in a few days. It asks me to not read for the sake of it, but it enjoy the act of reading. It’s also very nice reading something so well written because I’ve had a bad streak, a lot of quitting books a quarter/half way through. I need to stop trusting the internet. My local bookshops are not my taste. It’s been a struggle. If anyone has or knows someone who has good recommendations, please let me know (send me a list of 3, 20, 100, any amount, please!).

On Sunday the rain was thick and splashed my sister and I as we waited under an awning for our laundry finish up. The weather only got worse once we’d collected our things. For a minute my sister wanted to wait it out, but I, ever so stubborn, decided to brace it as the clothes were still wet anyway. I told her at some point, that I was excited to get home because one of the best feelings in the world is getting caught in the rain then changing into dry clothes. I recounted a time I went for a hike and it rained the whole time, it’d been a long time since I’d been so cold I could feel it in my bones. One could have called it miserable, but the hike was wonderful and I was shivering during the car ride back to the house, delighted to soon strip off the sticky wet layer of clothes. I took a hot bath and it felt as if the heat could not break past the chill in my body. It was immensely comforting. I remember it was Boxing Day and the house was quieting down. I curled up in my bed for a quick nap, still feeling the chill but wrapped up so tight I smiled and fell asleep.

Thank you for reading,

Enya xx