I am anything, but illuminated.

I find my creations often breed in the darkest parts of me, so I usually linger there: in my failures; in my sadness; in my anger; in my embarrassment.  I take all the ugly parts of me and make poetry out of it.  I take all the pretty words I know and string them like fairy lights around my soul.  But I am still in darkness.

As I grow older, I continue to realize how little I actually know.  It’s a pretty interesting phenomena: “the smartest girl in class” realizing just how much she doesn’t know.

The craziest part of it all is that even though I accept that there is not much I can really be sure of, I am pretty adamant in my knowledge of one thing: my limits.

My anxiety plants my limits in the fertile soil of my mind.  She tends to them, waters them just enough, sprinkles nutrients when needed, turns them toward the sun when they look a little ill.  She harvests her crops often—nourishes herself with the fruits of her labor.  And even though she takes her time to make sure my limits are lively and well, she keeps me wilting.

I do this often.  I decide what my limits are and follow them like they are guidelines.  I never test them.  I never try to run for those extra five minutes.  I always save every project and every assignment for the absolute last moment.  I proclaim my love for poetry and never find myself crawling towards a pen, or a keyboard.  I do just enough—call myself the jack of trades, but the master of none, without ever trying to master anything at all.

I think limits are safe.  You can’t be anxious at your limits.  There is no unknown.  You know that you can absolutely do ten pushups.  You can absolutely eat a whole pizza pie.  You can definitely dance alone in your room when no one is watching.  It is comforting to draw a circle around yourself and say that you can’t pass this line.  But does it make you happy?

I can’t answer for everyone, but I hate it.  I get cabin fever.  I pace the lines I draw for myself and forget that I’m the one who created them in the first place.  I get frustrated at myself—kick the sand up in the air.  I huff and puff, but I don’t dare to pass these lines I set.  I stay in the dark.  I stay not knowing.

But I am learning, slowly, but surely.  When the sand clears, I see that the lines disappear too.  I feel myself wilting less.

I think back to my Calculus class, when I started really learning about limits.  They were always confusing to me, but I can simplify them a little bit.

When you are asked to determine the limit of a certain function, you are faced with a few options:

  • The limit can be a specific number (like the limits we set for ourselves).
  • The limit can tend to positive or negative infinity (an intangible, unfathomable concept set in the far off future).
  • And last, but not least:tumblr_nhsimxYGvn1tk1ch1o1_500.gif

So I am teaching myself to take a step over my own limits.  I’m trying to not define myself by the boundaries drawn before me.  I’m trying to remind myself that these are limits that I’ve made up in my head.  Hell, maybe they don’t even exist.

-Michelle Cherian