It hurts me, pains me, but I love it. I do it too much and to such extremes. Scaling down by any measure would alleviate those directly-related pains and even those that occur as side effects...ripples. It's something I've trained for, feel born with an attitude and aptitude for, have developed strong passions for and a personality around. In its absence, I feel loss and incompleteness and greater pains than the ones it causes. It shapes the way I think about everything remotely related to it–turns me into a philosopher, a guru in a cave...in my own mind.

At times, my pursuit of it is visible, its manifestation unambiguous to all, exploration known and commented on; but not always, for its pursuit can be completely unapparent, invisible to the outsider, but the exploration can be just as strong, impactful, satiating, pain-reducing, and pain-pursuing.

I've made plans to pursue it forever, mostly because I'm powerless to it, the desire for it, and that feels better framed as an intentional choice than a wave that effortlessly overcomes whatever grip I have in the shifting sand. A happy surfer in pursuit of movement...

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This piece was written during a creative writing session with some TGS students and teachers involved in the club called "Word." During this weekly session, one word is chosen to spark inspiration for some form of expression. This week, the word "movement" inspired me to start at the bottom of a notebook page with the word and find my way to that conclusion without mentioning it on the way there.

Since high school, my creative writing endeavors have often involved an intentional clouding of the real meaning or an ambiguous topic that actually describes two things in parallel. It's a bumpy, evolving voice and one I'm trying to figure out how to define, but my hope is that it reflects an untainted version of my internal monologue and requires multiple reads to understand the different meanings.

Any idea which two acts I am describing?