Changes

I'm in a fog.  A funk.  A funky fog of frustration and fear.

To what end?  Where does this angst take me?  Why am I surprised by how quickly anger leaps in my chest?  Why does there seem to be no hope, no redemption, nothing of interest at all?

Drudgery.  That's the word I've been looking for.  All is drudge.

I'm being forced to make decisions, which I approach with bone-deep dread.  Ambiguity is more my speed.  Plan, but nothing concrete.  Prepare, but ready to bail.

I need resolution, but refuse to travel down that path.  Too many long hard conversations block my way.  Too many possibly painful moments of honesty.  I fear the truth I've buried in the dark.

But doing nothing solves nothing.  The gloomy clouds do not dissipate by ignoring them.  A storm may be on the way but this little shanty of fear and frustration will do nothing to shelter me.

Still I am mute.  A heaviness rises from my heart and lodges in my throat.  The more space is given to speak, the more I shrink back.

Possibly I am too aware of the impact of words.  What is said can never be taken back. Why talk about a problem when you can simply ignore it and hope it fixes itself?  Despite all evidence to the contrary, I live as though that may actually happen.

Avoidance begets avoidance, distraction begets distraction.  Running in place is exhausting and hiding under a rock offers no refreshment.

But what alternative is there?  To face the issues I have caused with uplifted chin and shoulders thrown back?  Preposterous.

Another day of fluorescent lights and shrinking cubicles.  Another evening of anxious escapism.  All too easy to see thousands of these days stretching out before with no change and no relief.

Yet change is as frightening as it is needed.  It is not easily controlled, it leaks into every area of life.  A shift of the rudder to avoid a sandbar can lead you dangerously close to an unseen whirlpool. Better almost to be becalmed on the still seas. At least that only leads to madness.  And a certain comfort can be found in madness.



But even this rambling is simply another way to delay, to analyze without engaging, to make an abstract study of the very fabric of my life.  Much easier to stand outside and observe than to slip inside my skin and risk the many trials and tribulations of life.

To feel is to know pain.  The alternative - an unfeeling existence - seems to me to be a little less than life.  Even now I have not slid so far as to desire that.

So I tentatively point one foot down the path, knowing I wear no armor at all that will protect me from the discomforts of change.  To live honestly is not the same as living easily, but I must trust that there is a far greater reward.