This Margaret Atwood poem distills why, achieving milestones associated with achieving ownership of material things always feels underwhelming. Either the feeling is not what you imagined it would be or the goal-posts move further so you still don't have reason to celebrate. There is never that wholesome feeling of having achieved perfection.
I can count five times in my life so far when I had accomplished a milestone that meant a lot to me and came after many struggles. I had imagined that moment of crossing the finish line many times and how wonderful it would feel; how life would fundamentally change after that event. Every single time that rush if it came at all, was extremely short-lived. The day after or the week after it is like Atwood describes " the air moves back from you like a wave and you can't breathe"
The moment when, after many years
of
hard work and a long voyage
you
stand in the center of your room,
house,
half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing
at last how you got there,
and
say, I own this,
is the same moment
when the trees unloose
their
soft arms from around you,
the
birds take back their language,
the
cliffs fissure and collapse,
the
air moves back from you like a wave
and
you can’t breathe.
No,
they whisper. You own nothing.
You
were a visitor, time after time
climbing
the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We
never belonged to you.
You
never found us.
It
was always the other way round.
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