November Rain

The last few months have been busy. November was a strangely uneasy month for me. More travel than I’ve been doing as of late and wonderful yet chaotic family time. It’s December first and I’m left feeling slightly out of sorts with no real explanation. What I do know is this. I have been avoiding. Avoiding work, avoiding writing assignments, avoiding various recreational classes and social engagements. I’ve just seen them as too daunting to start in on, continue with, or engage in. The excuses are endless but I’ve had far to experience with this sort of thing to be fooled. I just don’t want to show up. 

Something in me is clenched into a small little ball and not allowing me to expand. This is frustrating and scary as I’ve done so much growing this year. Frustrating because I’m not sure what’s causing the curling inward and scary because I fear that I’ll never get back to how I was. 

How I was. There are periods in my adult life where I’ve felt like things were going so well and they’ve ended in one manner or the other and have left me deflated at best, dejected and/or heartbroken at worst. At times like these, I look back on those periods with the longing of a starving man. Salivating, wishing I were there again, though I never can be. 

Intellectually, I know this. Emotionally, I don’t. How to tell my heart that we can’t move backward, but better times are in front of us? How can she believe when she’s hurting? How can I console her when I don’t know why she is? Is it just the time of year? The weather? The answers lie with time, patience and awareness. Three things that don’t come easily to me. But I guess it’s time for yet a fourth thing that I find foreign. Practice.