Now that I am thinking about it, I've really wasted my days the same way I wasted my nights.
Days slipped by while I waited for them to become something else. Nights stretched out while I stared at ceilings, skies, screens, anything that wasn't the quiet realisation that I was still here and nothing had changed. I told myself I was resting. Thinking. Preparing.
In all actuality, I was simply stalling.
I wasted my youth in small, unremarkable ways. Not through rebellion or ruin, but through hesitation. Through the belief that there would be a time where things would finally begin. A moment where life would tap me on the shoulder and say, 'Now.' This is it.
I waited for that moment like it owed me something.
Of course; it never came.
I waited for meaning the way people wait for a bus that isn't scheduled. Standing in the same spot, convincing myself that patience was a virtue when really it was just fear dressed up as discipline. Fear of choosing wrong. Fear of committing to a version of myself that couldn't be undone.
So I chose nothing instead. I told myself I was being careful. Realistic. Mature.
The truth is, I was hiding.
Hiding from my true self.
I waited for someone to give me permission. To want things without justification. To take up space without earning it first. I thought if I waited long enough, something would align. Circumstances, confidence, fate, and it would all make sense.
But there was nothing waiting for me.
No grand reveal. No version of the world that would finally say, You were right to hold back.
I've really wasted nights wishing I was someone else. I told myself that wanting more was selfish, that dissatisfaction meant I was ungrateful. That staying still was safer than moving forward without a map.
But safety has a cost too.
Time.
And time doesn't refund what you don't use.
The cruel part is that I knew all of this. I've always known. Somewhere between one quiet night and the next, the thought was always there, tapping gently, waiting for me to acknowledge it.
You're waiting in vain.
Not because life is meaningless. Not because nothing matters. But because nothing is coming to claim you.
No moment will arrive fully formed. No future will open its arms and say, 'You're late, but it's okay. ' There is no version of the world where I get to stand still long enough to deserve motion.
And maybe that's the point.
Maybe I don't need to wait for something to be waiting for me.
Maybe I just need to stop pretending that time has infinite patience.
Because it doesn't.
It moves. Quietly. Relentlessly.
And whether I follow it or not…
It will keep going on with or without me.