These Are the Days That Must Happen to You
The semester has started back, and everything is familiar—the walk to class, the lectures, the faces, the rhythm of it all—but there’s a slowness to it. Like everything is just slightly out of sync. Maybe it’s the season shifting, the light stretching thinner as the days inch toward the end of the year. Maybe it’s just me.
Deadlines loom. Tutors expect more. I’ve been visiting their offices, sitting across from them, discussing my essays, rewriting, redrafting, watching the margins of my pages fill up with notes, cross-outs, try again here scribbled in red ink. Some days I feel like I’ve lost the thread entirely. Maybe I’m not that good.
But then, what is good? What is good enough for me?
Or maybe I am in my own way, blocking myself before I even step forward.
The internship keeps me busy. Most afternoons, I head into the city, where I have a desk, a computer, a window view—a very journalist-official setup. I write for a lifestyle and news magazine, covering topics that range from event listings to feature pieces, but I keep thinking—why does this feel too easy? Is it because I’m writing about things I don’t have my heart in? Or is it just because I know how to write? And if it’s easy, does that mean it’s not mine? Or is this just how it’s meant to feel sometimes?
Meanwhile, Logos continues, deeper and heavier in Units II and III. My brain feels like a labyrinth of thought spirals—metaphysics, existentialism, ethics sharpened to a finer blade. I walk out of those lectures and the world feels… thinner. Like I could step through it. I go home in silence, radio off, the city passing in blurs of headlights, static buzzing behind my ribs. Other nights my playlists blast and my lungs protest as I sing and enunciate every word.
And then there are my afternoons at work, typing, writing, staring out the window, suddenly seized by the thought—I was in Iceland just a month ago. How?
How was I there—off-grid, wrapped in silence, walking through valleys of volcanic rock and mist, my boots against the dirt, the scent of earth and rain in the wind—and now I’m here, in an office, on a screen, watching emails pile up?
I think about the trail builders, the ones who live out there, permanently carving pathways into the wild for hikers like me. They work in the cold, the rain, in a world with no WiFi, no notifications, only weather and sky. And suddenly, homesickness hits me like a wave. But homesick for what?
I have to get out of here.
But then—no, I don’t.
I am meant to be here, right now.
Maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s not enough water, too much screen. Funny—me sitting here, typing this now. But writing helps. Even if I’m not saying all that much, it’s still something.
The days feel shorter. Everyone around me also seems tired, or off somehow, like we’re all waiting for something to click back into place. Maybe nothing’s wrong, maybe it’s just that time of year, or maybe everyone is wading through something invisible, emotions like fog and mist, the stifling of existence pressing in.
We are all moving through something. And time is still passing, whether we’re ready or not.
From dreaming you begin,
amassing great mysteries,
dancing amongst stars…
Something is stirring,
calling you from the dreamscape,
an invitation from above
to make manifest on Earth…
A quest of sorts,
a door being opened,
despite all costs,
all obstacles, all reason,
there is a need to go,
to run, to arrive,
somewhere,
but where?
You know not (yet),
but must go forth…
A guidance felt not heard,
leads the way.
Thoughts are distilled,
purified, into
an intuitive knowing,
and you are rising
dissolving
changing
and growing
with each step…
Onward,
onward,
the path goes…
The terrain you traverse
changes often –
sometimes you gallop
along a mountain path,
sometimes you are sky-bound
on a butterfly's wing,
sometimes you float
on a gossamer-sailed boat,
but you know
you are going somewhere.
So you keep buoyant with trust,
you stay awake to signs,
omens, and inklings,
and chart your course
accordingly…