Fine, Part Deux

My last entry in this ongoing life-journal, this blog, this open, public and world-wide virtual airing of some of the things going on inside my head, was more than two months ago. Titled Fine, it explored the nature of “finedom” and where I envisioned myself in relation to it. I concluded that not only was I decidedly on the not fine side of the scale, but also that I had been there for a while. Since then, a lot has happened and much of it, maybe even most of it, was pretty good. I set a sort of a benchmark in my last musing and from there I can clearly see that I am more “fine” than I was then. Much more.

Without going into a lot of unnecessary detail, some things in my life have worked themselves out. My outlook is much improved and as a result, my life in the present, right here, right now, is fine. The future has the potential to be much finer still, but the weird thing is that looking back I can readjust my level of finedom – a retrospective retuning, if you will. This is not a new revelation; I have been able to reassess large segments of my past and re-remember them in a different, much more positive light. It would appear that this is yet another example of things appearing much worse in the moment than need be. I’m not saying I overreacted, I believe that my feelings at any given time are valid; they are based upon what my experience is and has been, but part of that experience is that things have always gotten better, even when I couldn’t see it.

I was stressing over a lot of things last June. I was filled with doubt; I was exhibiting a profound lack of faith. Because I could not see a clear path in front of me, I felt as though there was nowhere to go but back. While I never threw in the towel, I sure wanted to. Several things carried me through that time – as well as the two or three years that preceded it. Among them was a 51-year track record of not dying. This may seem silly, but the mere fact that I am still alive despite events (one in particular) that challenged that reality gives me a baseline worst-case scenario. As bad as I felt things were, they weren’t that bad. Beyond that, I have these friends and family who love me and showed me the faith in myself that I did not have. I really didn’t think I could “do this,” they consistently told me I could.

But it pissed me off – no one really understood what “this” was. As it turned out, neither did I. “This” isn’t necessarily succeeding at earning my Ph.D., it isn’t necessarily succeeding in a marriage that never should have happened in the first place… it isn’t necessarily in the “achievement” of anything. “This” is navigating through life, simply doing my best, honoring my commitments and living with honesty, integrity and respect. That is the “this” I was not taking into account, that is the “this” that my friends and family knew I could do, and that is the “this” that, for the past 10 years plus, I have been living in and through - successfully.

All I have to do is stick one foot in front of the next and gradually things change. I didn’t want to. I wanted to quit and I didn’t even know what it was, exactly, that I wanted to quit from. School? That was the easy target, but it was far more than just that. The last three-ish years have been a pressure cooker – shit was coming at me from all sides - and I was just done. While much of that pressure is now released, it is not gone yet. I doubt it ever will be. But now I have yet another experience, another “past,” that I can look back to when things get all fucked-up again. Because, eventually, they will. Life is funny that way.