I don’t know how to want big things without feeling foolish anymore

Dear Delyara, That is a loss I mourn quietly. I used to want things with energy. Now I want them with disclaimers. Everything in me has become more cautious. The mind that once imagined freely now immediately starts calculating cost, age, realism, risk, timing, embarrassment, what people would think if I failed, whether I have the stamina, whether I have missed the right chapter of life to begin. I’m not saying this is wisdom. I’m saying it is damage. There is something deeply sad about losing your own appetite for possibility before life is actually over. I can still see the outline of the person I might be if I trusted myself more and feared humiliation less. But wanting that life now feels somehow indulgent, and the saddest part is that I know that voice is not truth. It’s fatigue and disappointment speaking with the authority of age. Still, it influences me. Every day.