Emotional Sabbatical

Haven't written in awhile...and not just here, but at all.

Writing to me is confrontation- confrontation of the complex, the fascinating and the minimal. When I begin, I never know where I'm going, I allow myself to ride the wave of fluidity seeping through, stringing together letters, hoping to find beauty and clarity in the finish.

Recently, I had something happen in my life that used up every ounce of emotional resource I had to offer. The initial numbness, the shock, the physical pain, the confusion and the guilt, the unknown ahead- it overwhelmed me enough on my minute to minute, that the thought of active dissection was quite literally a place my mind was unable to go.

I had a woman once ask me after the tragic passing of her husband, to whom she'd been granted too short a love affair, if I wrote in times of sadness. My instinctive answer- of course, my realization- no, not immediately at least.

She herself being a lover of the written word, had found the thought of mentally tackling so grand a personal loss head-on as a confrontation of too much pain, too much thought, too much energy. The simple act of forward movement stole from her every bit of mental and emotional capacity- there was no time to accessorize and acerbate the pain with adjectives, and certainly no desire.

But as much as this blog is intended to ponder new ideas and attempt their delivery by way of eloquence, it's also, about me- and it just didn't feel right to skip over this emotional crater which uninvitedly shot into my life.

It has now been just over two weeks since the accident which demolished my car and brought me close enough to a flash of what could have been, to know it's nowhere I want to go. In no way a worthy comparison to the cruel pluck of death- what I experienced in a quite literal split second, altered hugely the person I've been actively creating for as far back as I can remember.

I send thanks to the universe for I feel now more in sync with true priorities than I can ever recall. Maybe we do have to do a little breaking down, in order to really understand, appreciate and grow.

Precious Life

"Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

- Mary Oliver

"Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don't wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it's at work or with your family."

- Earl Nightingale

"Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self- denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the mental forces of hate, jealousy, and envy. Guard your fragile life carefully."

- Og Mandino

"It is your work to clear away the mass of encumbering material of thoughts, so that you may bring into plain view the precious thing at the center of the mass."

- Robert Collier

Mental Mayhem

Do you ever get exhausted by the madness that is your own mind?

Mine doesn't stop- twisting and turning, analyzing and assessing- each tiny detail of any and every emotion attemptedly interpreted and cataloged.

A blessing and a curse- for this is what I enjoy so much about humanity, heightening my own understanding to our differences, our structure, our makeup- what experiences and circumstances define us, knowingly or otherwise.

What path did you take to reach where you are today? What variables affected who you are and how you process your senses? Why are we each allowed such a uniquely natural ability to decipher this world? To me- it's an essence of life, the attempt to understand others.

I'm not asking you agree with me, nor I you, but to understand the reasoning and rationale behind the decisions we make and the actions we take, well it's important to me- how else does one set a foundation to create a valid stance and opinion about our own moral code?

I don't understand why you do what you do- so show me.
I don't understand why you say what you say- so explain it to me.
Help me pick it apart. Show me how. Allow me to see.

The problem is, even if you try to live life in this way, frustratingly running the play on repeat in mind's eye; you often remain burdened by misunderstanding.

It is this lack of conclusiveness that drives me mad- having been left in an intrusively introspective state- accosting myself of a blindness to the seemingly apparent- which instead brews a rather self-deprecating pot of internal speculation and disconnected, emotional chaos.

There is no resolution I've found, no cure to this disease that is endless thought and wonder. I suppose like anything else, it takes an active reminder of one's worth- both of others, and of self, to keep a lid on it all, simmering an anxiety of the unknown and harboring rather the genuinity of a curious nature.

Maybe everyone feels this way, maybe only women, or maybe, just maybe, it's only lucky me :)