patterns

My mind has been playing tricks on me, lulling me into complacent excuses, allowing for the opportunity to put everything on hold. Waiting.

It's this kind of behavior that has always gotten me into trouble. Weeks will have passed and I'll start beating myself up that I'm not any closer to what I want to do with myself and the litany of shit talk begins. 

Because I don't have clear-cut goals, anything but. And while I've been trying to do the  work that needs to be done to get to my goals, (and answers), lately, (and for longer than that), it becomes the recipient of the well-worn excuse, I'm waiting until the right time. 

And I KNOW that the right time is now, because waiting for the woulda, coulda, shoulda, means that time passes. Nothing else. Or someone else implements that good idea that was simmering for months, years, because deferred action keeps me small and small feels safe and feeds into every insecurity, even as I objectively recognize that I'm probably full of shit and that this is just small talking again, trying to take hold. 


Time is passing so quickly these days. I thought I was keeping on top of the few projects I still maintain, and realized yesterday that it had been 3 weeks since I'd posted a weekly self portrait. And then I started to panic, thinking I have to take three self portraits and catch up. But then, why? So my weekly self portrait project extends longer than its original start date. It doesn't matter. This impossible, internal check list of perfection that I can hold myself to is topped with sneaky loaded words like must and have to and I begin to recognize how insidiously tied I am to old ideas about myself, even as I acknowledge that it is no longer my truth. 


My hover status reminds me of the old cartoon The Jetsons. When the kids would be on their way to school, they'd hover by the door with their jet packs saying goodbye, and this is the visual I have had of myself: hovering, waiting.


Instead I choose to think of my holding pattern like my beloved hummingbirds. When they're hovering, they are anything but static and this holds true for me as well. Just because I'm not sitting here pouring my heart and tears out into my journals, or watching TED talks and plotting my next course of action, doesn't mean that work isn't being done. This floating along...I know that something is there. It's foggy, with undefined lines, but so tangible, I can feel its greatness. The words haven't formed around what that is and I'm trying really hard to accept this, to not force myself into hasty decisions and declarations, (as I'm prone to do), just because this operating system hasn't felt comfortable in a long time. 


Change is the only constant. Hanging on is the only sin.
-Denise McCluggage