After work this evening, all I wanted to do was get home, shut the door on the world, sit on my couch and deny that I have a life and I have choices. In a nutshell, wallow in the hollow. But, driving home, some little voice in me, some fist-raising girl who is fighting for the leading voice, rose up and said, No, not tonight. And I listened.
Putting the collar and leash on Cheyenne, lacing up my tennis shoes, the majority of me was going through the motion. Just a couple blocks, I thought, she needs to get out. When we set out though, there it was, waiting for me. The colors, the cool air, the reminders that life is out there, it's going on. With or without me. We walked and walked. It was a good choice.
Everyday we have choices. We may not like what they are, but we have them. The thing is that if we don't choose what we want in our lives, life will choose for us. That's a fact. I haven't been voting by proxy; I've not shown up at all.
I know that I've been clinging to a rock when I should be swimming upstream. I know that more times that I care to admit, I've said to myself, I never thought it would be this hard. And that is true but it is not true that I should freeze in fear and sadness. Because there's a little girl in Australia who has lost her hero father, and a neighbor who is fighting to prove she exists after having her identity stolen. I have a friend who just lost her job. Another who recently lost her mother. And my own mother sits in bed wondering where she is and how she got there. Yes, it is hard, but it's hard for all of us. We're all swimming upstream, making choices at every moment whether to cling or swim on. I think that's called life.
That little voice of mine? I'd really like for her to rule the show for a while. Only through the effort of movement, the effort of choices, will we find our solutions.
4 comments:
There's a very good book titled "The Road Less Traveled" which starts out "Life is hard". It's an acknowlegement of everything you wrote in this post. But, it's easy for me to forget that, so, thank you.
thats right, alison. let that little girl raise those fists in defiance. sometimes a little atitude is what gets us through.
I will share my floaties with you.
At a seminar I attended once, the instructor drew a horizontal line across the board, then graphed the "peaks and valleys" of the good times and difficult times throughout his life. In the end, he erased everything above the line, pointed to those low points, and said, "Here's where I experienced all my personal growth. The good times give us some happiness and relief, but almost all of life's important lessons are learned below the line."
Good on ya for pushing through!
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