Dear Shadow of my self,

I do not always think this way. I do not always think of myself as a mere shadow of what I once was. But it occurs. It occurs in moments in which I long for more, more than my life seems to be giving me.

It might be the fading pulse of my youth, in which my naivety and my curiousness were carried by hope and dreams, and freedom to live in the moment.

It is hard to realize that some things can never be had again, and that I must let go. But what is the replacement? What do I do now? How do I live my life with full power and satisfaction?

It is true, I guess, that I am afraid I am wasting my life. Not throwing it away, but not living up to its potential. I should live and enjoy with every pore of my being, and I try to do that to some extent, but I feel disempowered to make free choices as I am bound to my daily life with all its responsibilities. It is my self-constructed existence at this very time and place of my life. I chose this somehow, but I see how it can be my wings and my cage at the same time.

If I want to change what bothers me, where do I go? How far would I take these steps and whereto? That is a big part of the difficulty. Whenever I try to image alternatives, there is not much that seems realistic and feasible. Of course I would like to stop working for a living and instead be working for enjoyment and pleasure. I surely also want to be let off the hook by the piles of everyday's responsibilities, but that would consequently turn me into a nonconformist, an escapee or a society drop-out. Which would have dire consequences, and I would not really enjoy that either, to be honest. Boldly if imprecisely put, I count as somebody too uptight to be an anarchist or hippie, but too free-spirited and offbeat to be stuck in a corporative path of life.

And yet I go on every day, maybe because I still think I have time, which I do. This, however, means that I am not actively changing anything, somehow hoping it will somehow change by itself for the unimaginable better.