Bait Fish
Originally written August 14, 2016
There are certain things that I just know about myself.
1) I have a popcorn problem. The problem being that I want to eat all of it.
2) I am irrationally afraid of crocodiles. Irrational because I've never seen one in the wild in real life and I don't even blink an eye at alligators. (Also, GTFO spiders)
3) I will always be messy. Not auditioning-to-be-on-Hoarders-messy, but I'm definitely not going to be featured in Home & Garden anytime soon.
4) If coffee and wine disappeared, I'd have trouble being a human being. To be honest, I already have trouble being a human with those things.
5) I don't cry often, but when I do, it's usually triggered by something stupid like feeling bad for the beta fish in a Petsmart. Also, it's usually super dramatic to make up for all the of actual stressful/hurtful/hard things I didn't cry about when they happened.
6) If someone tells me that I don't have access to a bathroom, I automatically have to pee.
7) 90% of what I say is sarcastic.
8) I am either 110% obsessed with something or completely uninterested.
9) Sometimes I'm giving to a fault.
10) I'm extremely loyal.
That all being said, even at 25, there are probably more things that I don't know about myself than things that I do. I'm constantly changing my mind - and not just on little things, like what my favorite color is (it's red, unless it's pink). On BIG things. Like - what am I doing with my life? - what should I be doing with my life? - should I buy a house? - should I sell all my things and move across the world? - is it time to "be an adult" - am I responsible enough? - those kinds of things. When so much is shuffling around inside my head, it's super easy to get overwhelmed and stressed, to get lost.
It's ... bait fish.
A couple years back I was on a certification trip in Florida, working as a dive master. Dive mastering a class is typically easy - you are usually just there to assist the instructor and stay in the background keeping an eye on the students that the instructor isn't working with. This particular trip was going well and the students had already completed all of their required skills after the second dive. To be open water certified though, you must make four open water dives. Since the skills were finished, we just needed to complete two more simple dives. Enter the bait fish.
When DMing, I stay in the back of the group and the instructor leads. Sounds pretty simple, right? Everyone began going down the anchor line, me at the tail end when suddenly a huge school of bait fish swam through. I've seen bait balls before, but I've never been in one. It's exactly like what you see on the Discovery Channel (or on Finding Nemo). You completely lose visibility of everything except for hundreds of fish circling around you. You can't swim out of it, because they're moving with you. Seriously - every move you make, they mirror and adapt for. It's NUTS. It's overwhelming. You lose sight of everything except what's immediately in front of you, and even that is shifting, making it hard to focus.
What's the point of my bait ball story? Essentially, it's that I feel as if right now I am in the center of a bait ball.
I have no idea which way to go. Things are moving, out of my control, all around me. I don't know when or how the pieces are going to fall. I can't see an end game. I don't have a specific target I'm aiming for. I don't know what's going to come into focus once everything stops spiraling. Places, people, and responsibilities are tornado-ing around me and I can't seem to prioritize them in any kind of order that makes sense.
Damn bait fish.
But, somehow, I am okay. Strangely, I'm not scared. Overwhelmed, sure, but not scared. I wasn't scared when I was in that bait ball either - because despite everything, I was in my element. I might not have a handle on a lot of things, but I can handle myself underwater. And in the middle of all that chaos I was still balanced. I was sure of myself.
And now, in the bait ball along the path of life I've found myself in, I'm not sure of a lot of things, but I am sure of myself. I'm sure that even if I stumble, or I go down an unfamiliar path, I will eventually find my way because I am finally grounded in who I am and that makes all the difference.
Alice: What road do I take?
Cheshire Cat: Well, where are you going?
Alice: I don't know.
Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't matter. If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.