Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Blurring the Lines

This is a thought that has been circling through my mind in the last couple of days, and I am only sitting down to write it now as things become clearer to me. I have been surprised by the last couple of months of my life. There are so many things that have happened to me, things I thought would break me, and yet, somehow I endure. And I keep asking myself why. Obviously, it is always easier to just put things aside and to sit back, give up, decide to give in. But while I might have done that before, while I might have attributed whatever strengths I have to others, I realize that I can survive, that I can be stronger, and that the next thing may seem just as bad, but I have survived worse and I can make it through again.

It is strange, to sit back and realize that you are strong. And I am not saying I could have gone it completely alone. I have amazing friends who have been there for me, and there have been moments where I have been completely broken. And sometimes it seems those moments are fast and relentless, coming one after the other. And yet, somehow, I manage to make it to another day, and I realize that I can persevere. That I all I need is a little bit of grounding to get myself a firm hold, and I manage to pull myself back up again.

And in lifting myself back up - sometimes with an out reached hand - I find that the things I was so sure about are becoming less certain. Yes, I feel that life truly is unscripted and you have no idea where it will lead you. I find myself entertaining thoughts that I might not have before, wondering if I could be the person that others need. I find myself moving more towards exploring ideas and boundaries, of often testing what I have established as my comfort zone and moving into territories that are completely uncharted and unexplored.

There are those who know me, know some of what I am going through. And they ask me the questions that I need to answer for myself. But I also find that there is so much more about me I can not explain. Why I hang on to one particular person from my past, when the whole world screams at me to let it be gone for good. Why I sometimes look back fondly on memories of people who will never be in my life again, by design or by default. I look at those who are new to me, though I have always known them, and I wonder if testing my boundaries with them is wise or practical. But for all my thoughts, in the end, I can only ever do one thing: live my life. I can only ever follow a path that I have no guide for and hope that what I do will end up being right for me.

I sit here, right now, wondering what the future holds for me. I sit here thinking about all the things I give up when I make choices, all the ways in which what we desire most is sometimes the one thing that should be forbidden to us. And I think about the middle ground: perhaps it will not be the thing that makes us feel the most pleasure, the thing that meets and exceeds all our ideals but perhaps, in its own way of not inducing waves of gut wrenching pain and doubt, it brings the most happiness? No one ever wants to settle; we don't want to live a life of compromise. But at the same time, perhaps residing in the middling grey is less about settling and realizing that this is what life is meant to be: choosing a path that balances out all the forces within us.

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