Off the Bench

There is another fine line I'm walking and so now too, comes another confession. Divulged maybe, in hopes of proceeding through and past whatever is going on?



This fine line I tiptoe presents itself between the license I've given myself to not go so much because after all it is winter, it is cold, and bears hibernate. And then the other side which is the vault I'm in danger of falling into if I grow careless with my allowances, because I feel the pointed fear and hear the slippery lies shifting closer in each day this slow season goes on. And I am not a bear, grizzly as I become this time of year. I am a mom, wife and daughter, friend. And these titles bid me leave the sheltered but caliginous cave.



When the phone stops getting answered and the grocery store becomes even more unendurable than one had previously thought and the idea of service in any form enervates and even coffee with friends nags instead of invites, well, there may then be a problem.



And I've been told that the first step ( I believe in first steps) is to just do it. Just do whatever it is that's been too long evaded because continued avoidance creates harbored distress. And don't put it off. Don't say, "next week, or tomorrow, when I feel better, when it's warmer."

This is anyway, what I've heard. I have to hope the source is reliable. It is, you see, a source who refused to admit that all "normal" people secretly hate the grocery store when I pressed him on the subject. So, you never know, he could be wrong.



But I gear up though the grocery store is the worst and I have a long list.



And then tonight, service and socializing in one. Will it be so torturous?



There is my truth for the day. And I am very easily convinced that my struggles are unique but perhaps that isn't so. I share because secrets kept are terrible, but engulfed in any disclosure is yet another edge. Confrontation without identifying fully with any one supposed condition. My body is so much more than what in its earthly form it presents, performs. Speaking yet vigilantly so as not to become the one mere fragment of one mere fragment which is me for now, in the here, an unfinished bit, so far from completion, an eternity still left.



And this is a time when the question of "why" won't suffice but I'm burdened with it in my heart. Because it didn't used to be this way, to this degree.



And under all this, last night I went to bed too early, assuring myself it was okay to call in replacements. And it was.

But I am not replaceable every day. So, today I'm off the bench and in the game. And it's not really about winning or losing, but how you play.