because my article is one week late

This is a bad habit I've acquired.  When asked to write something–a script, an article, an essay, or whatever–and I couldn't, for the life of me, get started because I can't think of a good opening line, I dawdle.  I tinker with my Friendster account, I bloghop, I organize then reorganize my hard drive files, I browse through my photos, I read, I update my organizer, I daydream.  And so my thoughts wander until I find myself writing about something else.  One week after my deadline (I'm so sorry, Janus!), I still couldn't think of a freakin' opening line for a travel article I'm supposed to be writing.  So I dawdled again.  For no particular reason, I decided to visit an old friend's now-defunct blog.

After reading (and reminiscing at the same time), I emailed her and asked…is she happy?  I really wanted to know.  Not because of plain curiosity but because I realized she was the one bold enough to stray away from the conventional choices back when the rest of us were either "steady" with our lives or simply contented to be in our comfort zones.

It was her choice to change.  And it wasn't your simple I'm-getting-a-new-haircut-new-image change.  Or I'm-transferring-to-a-new-company change. .  It was the I'm-leaving-everything-behind-and-moving-forward-to-a-totally-different-world change.  Continents away change.  And again, it was her choice.  In my case, extreme events jolted my status quo and forced me change.  It wasn't my choice.  Because everything was good.  Work was exciting.  I had my family.  I had my circle of friends.  I earned enough.  I had plans of traveling.  I was doing fine.  I was okay with my life.  But maybe fate deemed it mediocre.  So she decided to give me a big kick in the ass.  And while I've known for a long time that permanence is a fallacy, I somehow find myself still yearning for that comfort zone back.  Which is frustrating because I know I'm never gonna have it back.  I know I have to make myself a new one. But I'm deathly scared.  Of moving forward to the unknown.  Of leaving things behind.  Of moving away from the people and places I've known my whole life. Or maybe I'm just being stupidly sentimental most of the time.

Maybe the key is not thinking.  Just doing.  No more meticulous planning.  Just executing.  Maybe one day without warning I just might decide to fly off to a place where my past can't haunt me because it has no place there.  Maybe one day work will be light years more exhilarating, I'll have more friends, I'll earn way more than enough, and I'll really start traveling the world.  Maybe one day I won't be afraid of letting go anymore. 

It's been an hour since I turned this laptop on.  I've managed to write a four-paragraph entry which basically says that I'm an emotional coward.  I still don't have my opening line.  Nothing in my blank Word document has changed.  But I have.  And those greater things that are meant for me?  Give me a little more time and I'll be ready to embrace them and face the thrilling unknown head on.