“Your favourite song has a swear word in it!” – My mother at Christmas.

If you’ve been in a Food Basics in Canada, you may have heard a song about a Cinnamon bun by Anna Sofia. That’s not the song. It’s a different song that is also utter nonsense. I love music as a way of identifying with how I’m feeling. Literally yesterday I felt the urge to play about eight different ones throughout the day based on connecting lyrics to real life feelings and moments.

There’s this song by Anna Sofia. Utter nonsense. But one lyric that’s always stood out to me – “Living past your page.”

I think it’s so important to have the courage to turn pages. But I’m learning that it’s incredibly difficult to turn a page when all you want to do is continue reading.

If you’re not turning the page by choice, it’s difficult to accept the next chapter.

The past month, I’ve been living in a constant wind storm. I try to stay on the page. The wind takes it every time. Sometimes it even turns several pages at once. I keep turning back to the page to try again, but the wind always blows it back.

For a while now, I’ve lived my life in a perpetual state of hope for what both the present and the future might hold.

But recently, I’ve had all of those dreams dashed. Like someone woke me up in the middle of a dream that I so desperately wanted to continue having. POOF. The spells have conjured, and this time, they’ve completely cast.

One of the primary points to my ‘Core Four Theory’ is that when one thing goes wrong, you still have three more to bring you joy.

I haven’t explored what happens when all four come crashing down at once. How hard that hits. How low life feels when all high hope feels lost. How difficult it is to regain hope when you don’t know where to look. When you don’t know where to find it. When the page continues to turn against your wishes.

I’ve stumbled from the highest point of the playground all the way down to the rockiest seesaw. At ground level, I understand that the crystal ball is cracked. I mentally move my mind toward the next chapter.

But then skyrocketing above and overruling all of that is a strong ambition to repair the crystal ball. To get life back to the way things were. To flip back the page.

This has been a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Every time I try to repair the crystal ball in any form, I make things worse. I realize that it’s not the same. Then, I spiral into sadness about how it’s different than it used to be, even though I know that the past is in the past. It isn’t meant to last.

I’ve confused myself all the more because I’ve already moved on. My own feelings have changed. But I still find it difficult to let go, because I don’t want other forces to change their feelings too.

I know how much I enjoyed the past five months. How much I wanted that to last the year. How much I wanted that to last a lifetime. How I wish I could capture those feelings in my crystal ball and never let go. So I keep touching the oven to see if it’s still hot, even though I have no desire to bake anything.

I’m living at the top of the seesaw high in the sky, even though my mind already knows that I’m ready to be grounded again.

The seesaw of emotions changes every now and then, but I keep trying to chase what’s already gone. The past few weeks, I’ve been running in the muck, never knowing which way to turn. But I’ve still been trying to play the damn show. Every single day. Trying to show up when all I want to do is run away and escape. Run far, far away.

I need to finally admit that I’m not ready to play the damn show. What makes me who I am will not always be what makes me who I am. I need to be comfortable letting go of who I am, in search of who I might become.

Even right now, these things are not ME, even if they’re a massive part of my identity. Things change. People change. Butterflies always fly out of the cocoon.

Reality: Everything that’s evolving right now would have evolved anyway. Even if now is premature from my original intentions. Ten years from now, I’ll probably look back on this experience as one of the most meaningful in my entire life.

This is the answer to the dilemma. When all that’s important comes crashing down at once, remember that life always evolves beyond our wildest dreams anyway. Those areas of your life can still be important to you, even if it has to be in reimagined ways.

Normally, I look at life as a series of mazes that I have to solve. I’m always working toward my ambitions in each key area of my life. When things don’t go to plan, I work tirelessly until there’s a chance of the situation changing.

This time, I can’t change the situation.

What I can change is my perception. My attitude. My interactions. My future. What I actually do about the situation. This is what I need to focus on changing. I need to get comfortable with the wind turning the page. In fact, I need to be ready to turn the page myself, and to finally, live past this page.

This moment will just be a fossil deep beneath the layers of rock. One that I might dig up later. One that might be discovered years from now by someone else. But one that’s meant to stay underground. One that’s not meant to be resurfaced.

If I can fully embody these mindsets and remember that the page will always be turned one way or another, I might be able to turn the page. It’s difficult. It’s really difficult right now. But the end is near. Soon I’ll be able to turn the page and live past this moment. No matter how difficult it may be.