Testing, 1, 2...
Is this thing on?
I'm pretty good at getting things started. I hit the ground running, head full of ideas and heart full of hope. Eyes to the sky, believing with everything I've got that this is the time that things will work out. This is the time that my actions will mean something. This is the time when what I strive to achieve is actually within my hungry reach.
And just as soon as I begin, it seems my momentum is halted by forces unknown. Forces seemingly internal - for what is more ironic than setting yourself back by the same fortune with which you struggle to motivate yourself? My pace slows, my breathing becomes labored, and before I know it, I'm just trying to stay on my feet and move even one step forward, when even that seems like one mile. Is it fear that keeps me pinned to the ground where I stand? Is it simply hesitation? Or lack of perseverance? Maybe I've just started running uphill without realizing that I'm working against more than just the distance that lies ahead.
Because it always comes down to gravity, doesn't it? We fight it every day of our lives, just to be vertical, just to maintain our stance - perpendicular to the earth beneath us, our bodies like arrows pointed at the heavens, no matter where we stand. Each morning we rise, and then rise again to oppose what keeps us bound to terra firma. So what happens when our goals, our dreams, our lives, become weights around our ankles? For today, I simply feel heavy. Too heavy to wonder why things happen the way they do, or to wonder why people are the way they are - none of that can be answered in one afternoon with a spinning head and a heavy heart.
And yet, the sun still shines, and I still sit here, with health and youth and strength on my side. The strength that seems to have temporarily removed itself from my view like a child hiding behind a tree. I suppose finding it again is what gives us something to write about, something to look forward to, something to remember when, sometime in the near future, a little voice will count to twenty and courage should disappear into the woods again.
I'm pretty good at getting things started. I hit the ground running, head full of ideas and heart full of hope. Eyes to the sky, believing with everything I've got that this is the time that things will work out. This is the time that my actions will mean something. This is the time when what I strive to achieve is actually within my hungry reach.
And just as soon as I begin, it seems my momentum is halted by forces unknown. Forces seemingly internal - for what is more ironic than setting yourself back by the same fortune with which you struggle to motivate yourself? My pace slows, my breathing becomes labored, and before I know it, I'm just trying to stay on my feet and move even one step forward, when even that seems like one mile. Is it fear that keeps me pinned to the ground where I stand? Is it simply hesitation? Or lack of perseverance? Maybe I've just started running uphill without realizing that I'm working against more than just the distance that lies ahead.
Because it always comes down to gravity, doesn't it? We fight it every day of our lives, just to be vertical, just to maintain our stance - perpendicular to the earth beneath us, our bodies like arrows pointed at the heavens, no matter where we stand. Each morning we rise, and then rise again to oppose what keeps us bound to terra firma. So what happens when our goals, our dreams, our lives, become weights around our ankles? For today, I simply feel heavy. Too heavy to wonder why things happen the way they do, or to wonder why people are the way they are - none of that can be answered in one afternoon with a spinning head and a heavy heart.
And yet, the sun still shines, and I still sit here, with health and youth and strength on my side. The strength that seems to have temporarily removed itself from my view like a child hiding behind a tree. I suppose finding it again is what gives us something to write about, something to look forward to, something to remember when, sometime in the near future, a little voice will count to twenty and courage should disappear into the woods again.
posted by laura at
2:56 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Laura,
This site in nice. Your blog is something I can relate to so, so much. It was nice to see how you chose to express this phenomenon of halting. I cannot imagine you experiencing fear, especially after all you have accomplished so far. One of the things I admire about you is your seeming lack of fear. You found the words I've been seeking when you wrote that we are working against more than just the distance that lies ahead. And you speak about goals and dreams becoming weights around our ankles.
I recently paused my "dreamwork" because I felt I was doing it with a gun to my head. I had to stop and put down this metaphorical pistol and come to know that I'm not pursuing my dreams just because I think I have to in order to have worth. I needed to know that I'm doing this because it is a part of who I am and I'm doing it to give what I have to give, and not for any glory or "fame" or to "be somebody" or to feel worthwhile. I guess I had to make sure I was doing things out of love and, more or less, necessity.
Then this distance ahead comes to matter little in comparison to the footsteps I'm making here and now. The forces that slow me down just allow me to be more precise. I'll keep moving ahead and I may not go where I planned, because life imposes its own priorities, but I'll get done what I am to get done, by being genuine. If I pursue dreams because I'm holding a gun to my head, I'm very likely to shoot myself instead of accomplishing anything. I try not to pursue dreams, anyway. I live them and, if I can’t live the dream, then it is not the right dream for me; no matter how much I may wish it was.
Thank you Laura for writing what you did. It has helped me to put my own battle with gravity into perspective and to find some words of my own to understand it.
You are so very gifted and I truly admire you for what you have created so far.
Take care!
Dan
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