Shine
"Sorry I haven't been around a lot lately. I'm easily distracted by shiny things." – The Tick
[I was hit by a metaphor once when I was a child. I've yet to recover.]
It's difficult, when I've been nastily challenged, to remain calm. My face heats; my pulse pounds; and I have to seriously work to keep from striking back. And when a dozen or more small, but not completely insignificant, nasty adversaries pop up to strike at me, it's impossible to not want to strike back just as nastily. The trick is in whether or not I act on those nasty retaliatory impulses. To keep from doing so, it's a battle that's hard fought.
I mostly win these battles. I'm a fairly laid back, slightly submissive woman with a fuse that's miles long. Still, occasionally that fuse runs out, and I blow up all over the place. It doesn't happen often, thank goodness. But it happens. I've learned that the best way to prevent it from happening is to anticipate the length of my fuse and try to mitigate problems that crop up. This seems to lessen the impact of the problems. But my fuse length is difficult to judge sometimes, especially when I've been smacked on the head with something that I haven't anticipated.
Lately, having been flattened by boulders, pushed off of cliffs, and hit with tons of bricks without warning every other time I turn a corner, I feel a bit like Wile E. Coyote. Some of the mishaps have been the deliberate actions of someone trying to hurt me, others have been the results of my own foolish actions, and still others have been instigated unintentionally by people meaning to help. And like Wile E. Coyote, I've just been looking for lunch. How did I end up running into a wall with a black semicircle painted on it? Man, I thought that was a tunnel. With all of this, it was difficult to keep a happy face.
It's amazing how much all of those sad feelings change when one good thing happens. It was just one good thing. It wasn't particularly big. It wasn't really all that life changing. But it was unexpected. And it was good. In a current life that is constantly bombarded with bad, that one insignificant itsy bitsy good thing has made all the difference lately. It's brought back my happy face. And even though the dark clouds that have plagued me linger, I now feel like I can shine. And all it took was that one little thing. How great is that?
[I was hit by a metaphor once when I was a child. I've yet to recover.]
It's difficult, when I've been nastily challenged, to remain calm. My face heats; my pulse pounds; and I have to seriously work to keep from striking back. And when a dozen or more small, but not completely insignificant, nasty adversaries pop up to strike at me, it's impossible to not want to strike back just as nastily. The trick is in whether or not I act on those nasty retaliatory impulses. To keep from doing so, it's a battle that's hard fought.
I mostly win these battles. I'm a fairly laid back, slightly submissive woman with a fuse that's miles long. Still, occasionally that fuse runs out, and I blow up all over the place. It doesn't happen often, thank goodness. But it happens. I've learned that the best way to prevent it from happening is to anticipate the length of my fuse and try to mitigate problems that crop up. This seems to lessen the impact of the problems. But my fuse length is difficult to judge sometimes, especially when I've been smacked on the head with something that I haven't anticipated.
Lately, having been flattened by boulders, pushed off of cliffs, and hit with tons of bricks without warning every other time I turn a corner, I feel a bit like Wile E. Coyote. Some of the mishaps have been the deliberate actions of someone trying to hurt me, others have been the results of my own foolish actions, and still others have been instigated unintentionally by people meaning to help. And like Wile E. Coyote, I've just been looking for lunch. How did I end up running into a wall with a black semicircle painted on it? Man, I thought that was a tunnel. With all of this, it was difficult to keep a happy face.
It's amazing how much all of those sad feelings change when one good thing happens. It was just one good thing. It wasn't particularly big. It wasn't really all that life changing. But it was unexpected. And it was good. In a current life that is constantly bombarded with bad, that one insignificant itsy bitsy good thing has made all the difference lately. It's brought back my happy face. And even though the dark clouds that have plagued me linger, I now feel like I can shine. And all it took was that one little thing. How great is that?
2 Comments:
At 10/14/2005 1:23 AM,
Stephen said…
You're a cryptic one ain't ya?
At 10/14/2005 8:07 AM,
Jan said…
Well, I didn't want this to be another gloomy post. I have had so many of those lately. And the details aren't really all that important in the message of the post. So it's vague, yes. But cryptic? I really didn't think it was.
Post a Comment
<< Home