i used to believe i could control my life if i tried hard enough. bend it to my will like god: the (un)kind of control freakery that’d make a kink monster blush. i held onto life like a new swimmer clutching a buoy: white-knuckled, shoulders hunched, back knotted. as if i could stop the currents and rapids, the very wind from blowing.
but then the rude awakenings went off like cannons. the ground shifted quietly at first, before building into an earthquake. newly aware of underground danger, i’ve become unmoored, but not lost. no more mistaking the plan for the journey; no more worshipping linearity. standing atop the rubble, i see my life fanning out in a thousand directions, including 999 paths not taken. this, not a cause for grief, but celebration. a new kind of power — living radioactive with hope.