incoming! buzzing swarm!

sylvia was right. about the figs, about indecision, about the ache that comes from standing under a tree and waiting for something to resolve itself. sylvia understood what it means to want everything — every life, every outcome, every possible sweetness — and to realize, slowly, that the tree will not wait. the fruit will rot before you can reach for it all. it’s the kind of lesson that doesn’t feel like one until it’s too late.

there’s a particular quiet that comes with knowing every choice is also a loss. it’s not just about what you take; it’s about everything you leave behind. the futures you didn’t choose grow heavier in the mind than the one you did. the fruit you reach for is never guaranteed. it can split open, hollow, full of wasps, nothing like what you imagined. sometimes it isn’t even about the fruit. sometimes it’s just about deciding at all.

the fear arrives early. you’re young, but already the idea of falling behind — of making the wrong choice, of wasting what little time you think you have — sits at the edge of everything. the calendar fills with decisions, each one carving out some other version of yourself. and even when you’re still, you feel it. that grip in the chest, the worry that whatever you’re doing, it’s not enough.

you see it in your family, too. your father, still waiting for some moment to arrive, some fig that doesn’t fall apart in his hands. you wonder if he’s ever known satisfaction, or if the wanting is the only thing that endures. you start to believe there’s something inherited about this, a tendency to reach for futures that dissolve as you get close.

sometimes you’re ahead. sometimes you’re lost. passions fade, ambitions dry out, and you start to wonder if desire itself is a trick? if the promise of fulfillment is just a way to keep you moving, to keep you reaching. maybe the hunger never ends. maybe it’s the hunger, not the fruit, that keeps us alive.

it’s tempting to imagine a world where you could know the outcome, where you could see every ending in advance. but that’s not how it works. we pick figs, some good, some bad, most just ordinary. the tree goes on, with or without us. there are wasps, there is sweetness. nothing is guaranteed.

this is all life is: reaching, tasting, sometimes coming up empty, sometimes finding something sweet enough to remember. you keep reaching, even as the wasps circle, even as the branches thin out, hoping that in all the choosing and losing, you’ll land on something that feels real, if only for a moment.

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