So Near But Yet So Far

I am sure I have talked about feeling it in my bones, with my very being, that something in particular is going to be alright, I know it will be. Even in the face of adversity, when it looked like it wasn’t going to happen, something in me would not let go of the belief that this is the one, this is the right thing. After all that is said and done, this will work. As with my optimism, I have no control over it. It is like a burning desire. I know I can get carried away quite easily but I am also very luckily for me, a realist, which means that there is always a niggling doubt at the back of my mind highlighting everything that can go wrong. For some reason, this niggling doubt has been completely drowned out and everything seems to be pointing in the same direction.

But the doubts are there, they are external but they are there and I cannot ignore them.  This is why even though I can actually taste it, it is still so far and I am in abject torment. I am not very good at dealing with conflict such as this, I guess it is my low pain threshold; I shut it out and hope it works itself out – a bit of an ostrich in that respect, but only when I am overwhelmed. I am now. All I need is a lead, and Ill grab it and run with it so fast so quick, I MAKE it work.

But for now, I will not fight my optimism; I’ll let it take control and hope it continues to drown out doubt. There are some sacrifices to be made now, and even with those sacrifices, which will ultimately determine the success of this venture, I am still so sure I am doing the right thing. It is a big gamble but one that if it pays off, all this torment will seem so trivial. I really hope it does. So, in keeping with my mantra for the year so far without reservation, it will be well, it will be well.

I Know

It has been too long without something inspirational and uplifting pouring out of me but I will attempt to spew goodness and wholesomeness in a very dark and troubled time. People are often stronger than we give them credit for; we all have incredible inner strength and it often comes to the rescue when all else shuts down, like back up power.

Every cloud has a silver lining and it is not always apparent straight away. Almost every parent tells their child who is sulking for being punished or being forced to do something they would rather not be doing, that it is for their own good. Eating vegetables for example, or taking the time away from playing to do homework. There is no doubt that as a healthy, independent adult, anyone would be at the very least secretly grateful to all the greens and hours of study or commitment to a cause.

I often despair when all my kids do is moan and complain, they are so short sighted I think, but I suppose I can also be accused of being the same sometimes. I have a lot to be grateful for, but focusing on the few things that are not going right just right now could make everything seem dire. So I will do what I always say to my kids, I’ll stop being so negative and I’ll count my many blessings. I am however entitled to a short sulk period and I shall fully exercise this right. It will be right as rain thereafter, I just know it will

Lose a pair, gain a pair

Last summer, or two summers ago, I joined the crowds of sun worshipers and got myself a couple of sunglasses; they were the kinds of glasses that everyone else was wearing and I got a pretty decent deal for two pairs instead of a single one, I could interchange them I thought, two is always better than one isn’t it. As it turns out, I didn’t interchange them much, I wore only one of the pairs; it happened to be the convenient to do, and it served me well, not just in the summer either, the winter sun can also be quite harsh.

As the summer wore on, so did the reasonably priced accessory and it soon fell apart. Shame that, I was getting really used to it. Where is the other pair I wondered, I searched everywhere, all the places I thought I would leave a pair of glasses. It didn’t help that I had moved over the summer and most things were not where they should be.  I eventually resigned myself to get another pair, or two, the days were getting longer and the sun was out in force.

I have a pair of hair pins I use in my hair on bad hair days which is practically every day, I leave them on my dresser with the rest of my cosmetics but this day, I could not find them anywhere. The kids are often in my room and my younger son is like a magpie, anything shiny and/or metallic gets taken away in his beak to his nest of wonders. I’d ask him if he took them but he was at school and I needed them now. I concluded that the hair pins will eventually show up but to solve the problem at hand, I decided I would get another pair from the bunch the original pair came from.

I opened the top draw looking for the rest of the bobbins, what’s in the grey plastic bag I wonder, I picked it up and dipped into it and surprise, surprise, the second pair of glasses were pulled out. They were still brand new as I hadn’t worn them since the day they were bought. Fancy that I thought, just when I least expected it, a brand new pair of decent looking sunglasses! And it was perfect timing too as it was a brilliantly sunny day. I also found the extra pair of hair pins I was looking for, result.

Setting fire to rain

That’s Adel’s gift to 2011 and certainly one of my favourite of her songs. Though I like the song for the emotion in it, I interpret the phrase entirely differently; for me it means doing the impossible. You cannot set fire to the water, never mind droplets of water falling from the sky, where do you start. 

The year has finally kicked off and there are a lot of decisions to be made as a result of imminent opportunities. It is the making of decisions and managing feelings and expectations that has led me to feel that I am setting fire to rain. I don’t want to lose this opportunity as the saying “opportunity knocks but once”, looms ominously at the back of my mind. The thing is, I actually don’t believe that you only have one shot, I do think opportunity comes pretty often but we are not always in a position to act on it; we would be lucky to even recognise it; another saying declares that “Opportunities always look bigger going than coming” which explains why we don’t always see it or perhaps see it all too clearly in hindsight. Perhaps they are often disguised as problems, and any wise man worth his salt knows that for every problem there is an opportunity.

It seems like the opposite is the case here, the taking of this opportunity comes with its problems. The biggest problem of all is the risk of missing out on it. If opportunities look bigger going than coming, then I will be trounced by this one leaving; it is as clear as day to anyone  the magnitude of this one a-coming.

Keep smiling

How does one remain positive in the face of adversity? A friend of mine asked me, "when did things come to this?". I have been asking myself the same question since the start of the year, but I don't have an answer for it. I am convinced that I will wake up one day and completely freak out because for right now, it doesn't seem to be sinking in. I say this because I remember one of the stories in school about pranks students played on each other. One that always freaked me out was the prank involving waiting for the prankee to fall asleep especially on the eve of their birthday and carry them in their bed to a strange location, most likely the other side of the school, preferably somewhere dark and deserted. Thankfully, this never happened to me but I always imagined waking up in the middle of the night, disoriented, in a dark, strange place, with no one else around, and assuming it will be outside, to sounds of "creatures of the night". what would I have done? run screaming and crying hysterically back to the dorms most likely, that is if I could sufficiently orient myself to find the right way home.

The most sensible thing to do would be to calm down, figure out where I was, walk calmly and safely back to dorm thereby avoiding clumsy falls and bumps and then find the architects of the prank and make them pay. As I said, thankfully, it never happened to me. That said, what I am experiencing now seems far worse than waking up in a haunted house, it does seem like a pretty bad dream yet I remain strangely hopeful and I'am not sure why. I have been lucky to have enough sensible people around me to tell me it will be all right in the end. In addition to this, I have lived long enough to know that nothing last forever but even with all that, given another time and place, I don't know how I would be handling the situation.

My father used to say that there is nothing that can fall out of the sky that the ground cant handle. I suppose he had a point, I mean after all, the meteor that supposedly killed all the dinosaurs did not destroy the earth, nor did it knock it off its path. In other words, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger? call me sceptical but surely, there is a place between death and strength, a bit of limbo where you are not sure if you want to be dead or run the next marathon.

But despite questioning my unusually sunny disposition, I certainly do not wish it away. there are days and times I do feel down but I allow myself to be cheered up by the little things, a call from a friend, a friendly word from a stranger, a good book or a funny film. Who knows, this meteor that has all but knocked me off course may just have done me a huge favour and killed all my dinosaurs. So here's to a speedy repopulation of planet me :)