Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Stuff your platitudes in a sack

"It's always darkest before the dawn."
"This too shall pass."
"When you get to the end of your rope tie a knot and hold on."

blah blah blah blah blah

When I actually need it I don't want to hear motivational crap or have someone tell me everything will be alright.  What it feels like for me in those dark places is a sense of utter hopelessness or unfettered anger.  In that place where all my best laid plans seem to be for naught.  The only luck I have is bad.  My good intentions count for nothing.  My hard work is wasted. Things can't possibly get worse but suddenly they do.  What I feel like doing is throwing up my hands and giving up. What's the point in trying? Every time I do it just blows up in my face.  I am misunderstood and harshly judged.  Why not just give up or give back the same shit that others are throwing at me?

Wait.

Wait even a moment longer, then maybe just a minute or two more.  If you can manage to the end of the day even better! I don't suspect things will be all fixed in the morning but it at least has a chance to be just a little more tolerable.  I don't always know how to do that gracefully but whatever works for you grab hold of it and let it carry you just a step or two further, one moment at a time.
Breath, pray, dig in your heels, fight back, curse, weep, throw rocks, or whatever else will keep you from tossing in the towel or throwing it all away.

Hold out, hang on, and wait to see what may come just around the corner. It might be an outstretched hand, a break in the clouds, or another steep hill to climb.  All good stories have these moments.  Wait and turn one more page. 

I wait with patience and perseverance

2 comments:

  1. I totally agree with the ones you called blah, blah, blah but there are actually two that I find to be personally meaningful to me....

    "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."

    "At the moment of commitment the universe conspires to assist you."

    I think that these two are personally helpful to me because as you so aptly put it they inspire me to wait and see.

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  2. I like all those sayings when I'm in a good place. Unfortunately when I really need them I don't want to hear it. The defiant, resistant, petulant part of me thinks in those moments that the people who said those things never had to go through what I am experiencing and somehow it doesn't apply to me. That is of course both simultaneously true and an error of thinking that keeps me stuck. The very purpose of many of these affirmations I write for myself is to try and connect those parts of me that knows and wants to hold fast to the wisdom and truth of those sayings and the part of me that gets lost in dark places and can't feel what I know in my head to be true.

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