Monday, February 8, 2016

Stuck

"Mommy, I'm stuck" my sweet boy says to me as he rides his tricycle through the house and tries to squeeze through a narrow spot.
"Turn around, buddy. There's plenty of room behind you."
He doesn't turn around. He is focused on going forward, even if there is no way to do so. He feels he is stuck, even though he has options - because they are not what he wants his options to be.
I spend a great deal of time feeling stuck. Some of the reason for that is similar to my son's: I am so focused on going the way I planned on going, I can't see that other options exist. Sometimes it takes me a great deal of struggle to finally see those options.
My life feels like thick, heavy mud that has formed a suction with my feet, my body, and my mind. I have spent so much time/effort/money following a certain path, not even considering whether that was the path I actually wanted, just putting my head down and powering through. And now, I am sinking deep into the mud of that path and I am screaming inside. My soul feels limp, lifeless. I am depressed and tired, so very tired all the time.
"Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire." (author unknown). I am fearless, but I am also, unfortunately, frozen. I am not afraid of anything other than spending a lifetime in a miserable state. But I feel like an animal in the middle of the road, with a car barreling toward it, and I am so paralyzed with uncertainty that I am unable to make any decision, and so I remain in the path of the car.
Not making a decision is still making a decision, I know. It is not the decision that I want to make. I want to have more control than that. But I get so bogged down in the logistics that I can't move.