I've been hunkering down, as they say. Trying not to get too involved in the drama can be a full-time job, it seems. But the truth is, it's getting harder and harder to maintain a positive mindset.
It's not only because things around here aren't looking that great. Life also has a special way of handing out challenges in buckets, not in rations you feel adequately prepared to handle.
Yesterday, my aunt called me over. She needed help moving Grandma. For the past week, her health has been slipping, and it seems the inevitable is just around the corner. The once-strong, active woman has been reduced to a wheelchair. Her voice, her words, have become a rarity we celebrate.
Later that same day, I shared a cup of wine with my mother as we discussed the tragic death of a dear friend of hers. A preventable death, though the details need not be shared. My mother's voice broke as she expressed her frustrations to her children, her audience.
Why is life so unfair?
That was the recurring theme.
"We are getting old," she concluded. "These sorts of things will happen more and more."
I know she's right. I know life doesn't truly get easier; we simply get stronger. Yet somehow there's a feeling in the back of my mind that warns me. A sixth sense I know I don't possess.
I turn to my efforts on this blockchain as a refuge.
What a refuge, right?
Not to put myself down, but some days it feels like I'm attempting to slay a giant with a paper gun. Yes, growth is a thing. Yes, nothing we do is ever truly in vain. But one does have to wonder if perhaps it's time to refocus.
Somehow—and not that it's logical, because it's not—I know I'll be fine. The dawn feels like a fallacy of sorts these days, but I know I've been here before. And somehow, I'm still here.
So I know these punches won't knock me out for long.
But boy, does my jaw hurt.
And you know what? I may be complaining to this blog of mine as if it does something to change the weights on the scale, but I know it doesn't.
Maybe it adds clarity.
But then again, what good can clarity do? What bill can clarity pay?
And yet... I feel guilt.
Almost as if I'm obligated to type positivity into these entries, as though the universe demands stoicism at any cost.
Ridiculous?
Maybe.
But also real.
That is all I have to offer.
At least tonight.
-MenO
