June’s #Reverb11 Prompt: Part 2

While we’re discussing letting ourselves off the hook for things, I think I might take this opportunity to let myself off the hook for the #Trust30 prompts celebrating the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I originally signed up for it spontaneously before shutting down for a week, figuring when I got back I’d catch up. I thought having a mid-year reflection period would be wonderful. I did well with the #Best09 and #Reverb10 series, but somehow life isn’t working out exactly how I want it to at the moment — I am not working as efficiently as I would like to at the moment. I can make excuses and place blame elsewhere, but it all leads back to me and how I’m functioning as of late. While I have the prompts archived in Gmail, ready for me to respond at my leisure, I can’t promise myself — or anyone else — that I’ll get around to them. In fact, it might come down to me deleting that label entirely in December.

I’m torn between feeling like my attitude controls my destiny and feelings of frustration in that my positive hopes and manifestations have done nothing. Seriously, I wrote something beautiful and positive a couple weeks back, and a couple days later I was horrified to learn that my positive outlook made no difference whatsoever. A situation in which I had been very emotional invested has forced me to give pause and deal with a varying range of emotions and the reasons why I’m feeling them. Part of why I’m so upset over it is because of the event itself, but I’m also partly upset  because it was a physical manifestation of fears that I’ve pushed into the darkest corners of my mind.

I’m absolutely terrified inside, honestly. Over 5.5 years ago, I was forced to make a decision to alter my path and abandon a dream of which I had invested so much time and energy. I’m at a crossroads again, and I absolutely do not want to make a decision to abandon another dream. Several factors involved in my current stalemate are merely temporary issues that will resolve with time — my abandoned dream was a matter of permanent factors that likely won’t ever change. I’m finding more and more that the past decade hasn’t been at all what I would have imagined 10 years ago. I sure life’s like that for many others, but that doesn’t make it easier to manage. The entire human experience is totally different from everything else in nature, and sometimes I’m actually quite jealous of “lesser” species that really don’t have to think about such profound, abstract ideas. It’s a matter of finding food and water, maintaining a protected shelter, rearing and protecting offspring, and staying alive long enough to be biologically successful. It’s not about paying taxes, living up to expectations, fancy houses and cars, or finding your niche. We, as human, complicated things so much so to the point that we’re suffering for all sorts of stress-related ailments. We have amazing technological advances, but we’re never satisfied. Even now, I’m sure my words will resonate with at least one or two people, but I find myself feeling like writing this from the heart, from my thoughts isn’t good enough. See? We’re a complicated species.

I’m letting myself off the hook again. I’m letting myself off the hook for writing a more profound entry. What I’ve written is good enough — and it’s time to face reality once more and live in the present. It’s time once more to dive back in and do, rather than sit and wait for change.