February 4th

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'...You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
 

-Eleanor Roosevelt


          Perhaps the most difficult thing that I find my self struggling with is time and my relationship with it. Too often it seems that it is going too slow, always hoping to jump to the next horizon, never really enjoying the moment. I feel trapped when something is on it's way, I can't get past the future enough to deal with the present, in some ways I am completely arrested by the thoughts I should be having tomorrow. 
        On the other hand, this constant forward thinking drains my current time and I am left with nothing. I wake up to find that all my worries and frustrations concerning tomorrow have turned around and have burned my yesterdays. I literally find myself unable to sleep, frozen at a desk or in a chair, petrified to see another morning come. With all the worry and fear one would think that I could use that energy to prepare or predict my actions and reactions, but instead it creates a glue that seeps straight into my bones, effectively rendering me paralyzed. 
       My only defense to all this comes from active imagination and random acts of chaos; the predictability of my unpredictable movements and choices has become a science I understand. I fear that all my talents and abilities have come to me to spite me. All of them are wonderful and I'm thankful I have them, but none translate into a "real world" scenario, forcing me to always put them away as hobbies and past times but never as a means of work, progression or employment. Pair that with my constant fear of the future and it's captivating paralysis and I find myself in a world of hurt.
      But one thing releases me: while my talents have no ability to turn into direct profits or employment, they are specifically designed to give to others. There is not one of my talents that I can honestly say is strictly for me, all of them MUST be shared to have any worth or to grow; I am a great listener, I love to teach, I write music, I love theater and enjoy acting, I write well enough to convey ideas, feelings and thoughts. I find myself unable to leave anyone sad, or discouraged and it is easy for me to find the right words for the occasion to help someone in need. I have never had a lack of ability nor strength to assist another, sometimes receiving that ability and that strength in the very hour of the need and not a moment earlier. These are my gifts, these are my releases. 
      As Helen Keller once wrote: "Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.". I feel this is the only thing I live for in times of great duress. May God continue to light my path as I walk this path and face my Demons. May I receive strength, direction and courage to challenge those Demons when they come, that's all I really ask for.