Defying Gravity

In 2008 I took a lot of shots straight at the heart and spent my year's allotment of optimism. It was like finding the surface of water on your last breath, and here I am standing just inside 2009 on a quiet, fertile ground that denies the turbulence of the path that led to it. It's quiet, hesitant as if waiting for me to collect myself, and I've brought some of 2008 with me into the new year. I shed some of it already, scattered on the days behind me, and today, I reached another breaking point where I let go yet again. I'm determined to see change. I've got pockets full of optimism again and a heart intact, and no room for excuses.

With few events at work for a month or two, I've got some time to grab some growth, to find that inspiration I've lost, and reconnect with people. I've got to sort out a few things, and I say this not putting that task first but rather with intention to make it all inclusive. This won't be a year with one silly resolution, or two to five goals to achieve. It won't be an opportunity to assign blame or to define myself in relation to anyone else.

Something snapped inside my brain, after which I immediately grabbed my guitar. That's how I knew I had to write before going to bed. Well, that's the way it usually happens with me, doesn't it? I think it means that both my left and right sides of my brain are agreeing on the state of my self, and that calls for me using some of this frustration and anxious optimism to stand right here, throw down a spike and signpost, and say that I deserve, as good as it already is, a better life than the one I have now. I've had it with expectations, I'm done with anything but truth, and I know it's time to embrace the creative life I should be living.

I've got a mixed bag of feelings right now, but I feel like I'm already burning it for fuel. I want to be busy. I want to do my job and then come home to work on something else. I want to look back on each week and have something to show for it. And then I want to have people to share it with. People here, right in the now, who are present in the present. That does require that I stop thinking about the past, and even the recent past, which will be hard, but easier if I stay busy.

So that's the beginning, the first brick on the road to Oz. What will I find when I get there?