tala's blog

your life is not a prequel

For so long, I've treated my life like a transitory period, an interlude. I'm not particularly adept with metaphors, but life felt like a prequel, a prologue to a novel that hadn't yet begun. Or a waiting room, somewhere between something and something else. You don't settle or unpack, because you presume you won't be here for long. I lived lingering, half-present, as if I were merely passing through, biding time until my real life began.

I often return to Rooney's line from Normal People: Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away. . . without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.

I was always waiting, I recall. For what, though? Confidence, clarity, an external permission to live? A version of myself that felt more finished, curated, worthy? I think I was waiting for a feeling of being prepared and enough. Once I am a better writer. . .Once I graduate. . .

But I don't think that moment comes. At least, not in the way we expect: a dramatic arrival, a grandiose, cinematic unlocking. If anything, I have come to realize that the procrastination, perfectionism, the ceaseless desire itself all come from the same place: a negation to inhabit the life unfolding right now.

Is this it? Yes, this is it. There is only the ordinary, daily practice of living, showing up to the quiet, the half-finished things and telling yourself that this counts too. This version of you, this is your life. Inhabit into your life completely and fully sink into your existence.