“It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and much harder to see the ends…”
These are the words that begin my favourite piece of writing by my forever muse Joan Didion. They’ve carried me through the many beginnings and ends of my life of late, but this evening I’m unsure of how to take them.
I’m lying in bed and I’ve had “that shower”. My hair mask is thrown up in a bun, my legs are recently shaved and slathered in Brazilian Bum Bum cream. My book is beside the bed with its pages waiting to be read and my outfit for tomorrow is pressed and hanging on the back of the door, ready for a beginning of its own. By all definitions, I should be feeling like the best version of myself. But here’s what’s going on…
Tomorrow might just be the beginning to end all beginnings. I’m starting a new job, and it’s not just any job. It’s the job. It’s one I’ve dreamed about since high school, but one that I’ve only ever been able to see coming true when I drift off into far away places in my head.
I think I’m a bit terrified. Maybe a little that I don’t know what to do, but that will come. It always does. I’m nervous for this beginning because it marks the end of that dream.
The dream becomes reality, only I no longer have control over it. All those what ifs are crowding out my brain.
I really couldn’t be more excited. Tomorrow I will get out of bed and I’ll be able to introduce myself as Tessa Patrick, the writer, again. Only it’s not for a newspaper that’s neglected in the driveway. It’s for a high end lifestyle magazine, but I feel like Andy Sachs.
If I continue to press myself about why it is I feel like this, I think there’s some part of me that thinks about the hazy end. The part where I wake up and realise it wasn’t my dream all along – I’d borrowed it from someone else and tricked myself into thinking I wanted it too.
It’s made me wonder too, when you make your dream become your reality, what do you have left to dream about?
I think they call this feeling nervousness. I need to get some rest.
Think of me tomorrow. Sending my love x
