Back home from a quick ‘staycation’ (because that cannot be a real word), I find myself on my old couch, staring out at a yard cluttered with old dog poo, dead grass, forgotten patio furniture, and a poor effort at yard design. There’s the bones of a treehouse out there laying at the base of a tree, never to be raised into the sky. There is clutter, waste, and neglect. My yard is a dying metaphor of my relationship with this home and this town overall. Further, it is a metaphor of my relationship with desire and passion. In other words, both have been left largely untended.
When the balance of doing things because I had to outweighed the things I did out of love, I didn’t see the long term problems. After a while, dealing with stuff became the way of life for me. I stopped writing out of passion and instead wrote out of practicality and a need to maintain publishing credits. I stopped trying to create a home and a life that worked for me only to cling to what I felt I could reasonably handle. I stopped stretching the boundaries of my love, falling back into what I believe was a safe holding pattern. In essence, I stopped moving forward.
If it sounds like this is going to be one of those motivational blogs from this point, it isn’t. I’m merely acknowledging where I am at. I don’t know what I need to do now in order to ‘get better’. I do recognize that I’m not capable of having that life I want in that space I want until I figure out a way to put that passion first. In a sense I am doing that right here and now, getting into my morning roll, writing with her in my heart, and starting the day productively.