I wasn't always so easily discouraged.
I used to bristle with enthusiasm.
I glowed with it.
It didn't matter if the task was simple, or tedious, or daunting, or boring.
As though on rails, I slammed into each and every task with terrific force.

But I got older.
Things that used to come easily grew slippery.
What I used to do without thinking twice, I found myself over-thinking.
I threw the brake. I ground to a halt.
Finally, I became idle. A left-over husk of a kernel that's already been popped.
I drowned myself with doubts. Hypothetical situations that might never happen.
I lived in fear of what might go wrong.

So I began to watch everything go wrong, as though I was helpless.
I was no less able. I was no less compassionate.
But I had grown wary. Of what?
What was it that, out of nowhere, caused me to slow down?

I guess I looked down and realized that if I fell, I would not be getting back up.

When you're young, you have no worries, because nothing is relying on your success.
So you mess up a math problem. You'll get it eventually.
So you botch things with that cute girl who sits across from you. You're young, you'll get it.
Re-assurance, faithfully, unwaveringly. A safety line should I fall.
But I never really fell, did I? So why am I laying down like I have?

Get up.

Get up.

I worry about everything. I worry that I will fail.

I dread what comes, what I can't avoid. But time, and time, again, it comes, and I miraculously don't die when it hits, because I've been bracing for a train-wreck impact, a force that will really, truly, finally, definitely lay me flat for good.

I close my eyes, and brace. But the crash never comes. The silence that was continued to be.

I turn behind me, but there's no train there.

I'm starting to realize, with relief, (with horror), that maybe all I needed to do was step off the track.

I look down, and realize, with a first-creeping then-howling laughter that I was never on the track to begin with.

I look off where the track is. There's no train there, either. Maybe there never was.

Maybe there never will be.