Sometimes Guilt Comes

Sometimes you stand on the far side of the bridge staring at the other side not realizing you can’t see what you haven’t lived.

I wrote it twice because I am struggling now, fighting my way through a couple of hard moments, frustrated because what pains me is something I prepared for and it hurts in spite of the prep work.

That is to be expected, the frustration that comes when you feel you have done your best and it wasn’t enough. You look in the mirror of your mind’s eye and ask the hard questions because accountability demands you look at yourself first.

The older I get the more intolerant I become of doing things that don’t make my heart and soul sing. I listen more closely to the song I am singing and I ask myself why I would be fool enough not to try to follow it because every time I don’t I am diminished.

I wouldn’t be surprised if those words sound like new age nonsense to you, especially because a few years ago I would have interpreted them that way too.

Except it is not a few years ago any more and I know more about life and coincidences or should I say there are no coincidences than I once did.

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a tellar but for want of an understanding ear.”― Stephen King, Different Seasons

Sometimes it is hard not to feel guilty for not being more excited about the gifts and blessings in front of me.

I tend to notice them most clearly when I am running with the moon. The contradiction in that last statement throws me because those are the moments when I am most conscious of having deviated from the course, of not being on the path where my heart and soul are singing our song.

It is when the ache comes and I feel most naked, most vulnerable and aware of the choices I have made and need to make. It is when I look out at the bridge and try to confirm that what I believe will happen is going to.

Yet you cannot see what lies on the far side without crossing over. You can’t know for certain without living and experiencing which means trying to control the situation is doomed. It is a recipe for failure.

You can be brave and move across the bridge and take what comes or you can let inertia and fear prevent you from moving towards what it is you need to go to.

The Benefits Of Blogging

I blame blogging for helping me to recognize and understand this.

It hasn’t always been about writing words down on a page and or coming up with crazy stories. Nor has it been about chronicling the lives of my family and the stories of my children.

This is where I found what I had lost and recognized there was a gaping hole. It is where I accepted changes needed to be made and understood it wasn’t going to be easy but it would be harder not to.

Inertia is a frenemy.

There have been moments where it was of great aid and assistance but it has also provided false comfort. It wasn’t meant to serve as long term shelter, just a place to dry off and catch my breath.

I won’t stay under its umbrella much longer, already stayed too long, guilt or no guilt there comes a time when you wander into the storm and dance in the rain or you choose to choke the song that sings inside of you.

Long ago I pledged to do whatever I could not to choke, to breathe my air and live fully as best I could. To do less would be the biggest lie of all.