And Then It Rained

I couldn’t ask for more than I’ve been given the past couple of days. For starters, it’s raining and my heart is rejoicing in this fact alone.

The precipitation of the season still lingers but I’m happy to see the temperatures ever so slowly increasing to the point where the would be snow is rain. It’s easier to get a sense of spring being around the corner when the precipitation mimics it. Where there is rain, there are flowers. Where there are flowers, there is sun. Where there is sun, there is life.

However, rain is the ending to my happy story and the beginning lay in a concerned email from a dear friend. Last Friday, I found a spare moment covered in dust and hidden in the corner of my work life. I brushed it off and relished it in the form of checking email.

I always enjoy getting mail from this friend. She is a most delightful girl and if that alone did not capture my attention, her shared anxiety in any aspect of my life much less the parts I find most uneasy, have always been and are incredibly touching to me. For this, I award her stars. Many gold stars.

When she queried about the nature of my past few blogs, I was immediately forced to ponder the true characteristics of my recent situation. Perhaps the most genius insight she offered was that of perspective. She drew my attention from the obvious past and the not so obviously present and suggested I look to a more scary, more exciting place. My future.

When you are drowning, the most dire struggle is for air. Yet at some point, between the gulps of breath, though the most dire struggle is still for air, at some point a plan must be formulated to get to land.

Most of my wrestle with life has been in determining how I can best take my strongest talents and skills and put them to use for the greater good of mankind. When I finally confessed to some of my desires and dreams, I was met with something I did not expect. Encouragement.

Though I blame no one close to me for that lack of encouragement in my life, conceivably the person most acutely aware of my inner wishes was the very least encouraging. That person being myself.

Then there was a click.

Maybe she’ll think I’m writing this for her. When in actuality I’m writing this because of her. All weekend long, I’ve been deliberating upon a suggestion made in a return email. With each thought, my excitement increased and my happiness swelled. Though the outlet is not quite the perfect fit, the concept truly is and I’m enlivened to imagine a future with options. The largest option being happiness.

The weekend granted a much needed reprieve from work. I savored the new thrill of a secret fresh impression of what could be. My friends were promptly able to add to my proverbial bucket because I seemed to have discovered my personal leak and was able to mend it for now.

And then there was rain. The reviving drops of the firmament which wash the old away and promise a lively prospect.

Stay Where You Are... Or Not?

When I was child, my parents frequently counseled me to “stay where I was”.

Every summer, we vacationed as a family to our beach house. It was the highlight of our year. We knew there was always one night our parents would leave us to ourselves. We would attend the boardwalk lined with rides and shacks and shops and people.

It was a child's dream come true. We were each given some money (a treat for us kids back then, before every 10 year old had their own cell phone and iPod) and were left to our amusement with merely a meeting time and place for a few hours later.

You can imagine how beside ourselves we were. We had to immediately get on rides which would spin us around ferociously. We had shaved ice and french fries to purchase. THE WORLD WAS OURS.

But one year, I suppose I was younger than an adolescent, I found myself in a precarious position. I was lost. Lost on the boardwalk I had grown up on. Somewhere between riding some wagon-wheeled, rotating, puke inducing ride with my sister and purchasing an ankle bracelet trinket which jingled with my every step, I looked up one way and down the other and realized nothing looked familiar.

“Stay where you are,” rang in my ears. It was a phrase I had known expertly. It had been used many times either in its authentic form or its many derivations. “Stay put.” “Stay still.” “Stay right there.” Freeze, if you will.

The ending to the story matters little. What is relevant is the feeling I have come to attach with it. It’s become synonymous with the solution to danger. To harm. To a threat. To things which would and do hurt me.

Ironically, I find myself in an interesting station in life right now. I’m paralyzed with… confusion. I just watched one of my closest friends get married recently. And though the actual incident had not left me in a tail spin, the idea and accompanied feeling of everyone else indeed IS moving on has.

What’s worse, my notion to freeze in this moment is instinctual though I can think of fewer bad ideas for me than to actually “stay where I am.”

I am weathering through it. I’m not depressed. Not today at least. I’m not dramatically chattering as I have been known to do in times past. I’m trying to keep my mouth shut and man up. Actually, there is an element of ‘ignoring it’ as my coping mechanism of choice for the meantime.

I am learning (or rather re-learning) one thing. There IS value in adversity. The friction of life is generally highly unwelcomed and regarded with even less worth. I have been toiling past the impulse to stay put and am embracing a newer philosophy more appropriately age geared to adults. “Get to it.”

Now, if only someone would hand me a twenty dollar bill and send me on my way to buy a funnel cake.

Where In the World?

It has come to my attention, people seem to be wondering where I’ve been.

I can’t avoid it anymore. Here I sit preparing for an entire day of meetings. I will either LOVE or loathe this day. I embarked on a brand new job two weeks ago. The rest is as they say history.

You’re still reading? The entry is done. My explanation is given.

Okay fine. On a more seriously note, the previous entries seem completely fitting (and obviously descriptive to me) as to where I’ve been.

The winter break gave me optimism for a new job, new opportunities, and other good new things. The New Year brought me a difficult job, little time for play, and a whole lotta change.

In the midst of all of these trying events, after Valentine’s Day yesterday, I have come to this conclusion. I will be fine. Things will find a new normality from new routine. And in time, I look forward to playing with you all once again.

Additionally for the record, I have been seen. Every morning the gray haired 50 something cross walk guard for the elementary school a few blocks from my house waves at me in my car as I drive to work. Every morning. I can count on him to be the very first one to greet me and he does so with a smile every morning. He warms my heart and restores my faith in humanity.

Smile. This too, shall pass.

Moving On...

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.
-Ralph Waldo Emereson

All I Need... - One Republic

Have you ever had one of those weeks? No. No. Before you answer, allow me to rephrase the question.

Have you ever had one of those weeks which was so stressful and so chaotic you thought it might actually kill you? A week who’s presence had a very real physically excruciating effect on you?

Where you found yourself in the shower barely able to breathe and within seconds realized you could faint or sit down and just let the hot water run over you while your tears became obscure in the much greater puddle of heated water?

Did you feel your heart and mind set with the sun and anytime after 6:00 you couldn’t speak or worse you just didn’t want to when forced to continue to deal with the week?

Have you ever had a week where you knew nothing could make you feel better but maybe a touch… one touch from anyone who would hold you, who could help you forget about it and make it all go away or at least provide a hug to your skin dying for attention?

Have you ever found yourself completely irritable over the mundanely annoying? Items which would be annoying still aside from the week but items you would casually and typically deal with and put aside easily in a normal week, yet items which have clawed their way under your skin in a most painful way?

Have you ever found yourself on that Friday BEGGING for the week to end looking for any sort of reprieve but feeling just as anxious about what next week holds?

Still even with your speakers as loud as they will go, you can barely hear Ryan Tedder screaming words completely pertinent to you?

Whenever the end is
Do you think you can see it?
Well, until you get there
Go on, go ahead and scream it
Just say it
ALL I NEED…

Have you ever had a week THAT bad?

Right. Neither have I.