Re-Entering the Void

The approaching weekend (I use the term loosely as today is still tragically Tuesday) has served as a beacon of hope and strength for me for over a month now. Unfortunately, I have concluded that the universe wants the preceding week to be as unbearable as possible in order to ensure my appreciation.

But complaining about the comically varied incidents that have led to this conclusion would just add unnecessary insult to injury. So I will try to condense it into one, concise, unrelenting dilemma.

Where do I belong?

I have blessings in spades. Complaining about any part of my life, at this point, is just asking for the karmic pendulum to swing in the opposite direction and restore the balance. I'm not that stupid. But I am...confused. In flux. I sort of feel as if my wheels are spinning while I continue to go nowhere.

And I refuse to settle. The same reason I was single for the first 22 years of my life is the reason I find myself yet again teetering on the edge of professional blankness - more qualified, for sure - but nameless, homeless, and directionless. That I am capable is far from the question. I want to do what I want. And because I have played my cards right, lead a morally commendable existence, given of of myself - paid my dues, if you will - for so long at this point, I feel as deserving of a job I love. This is a rare confession for the girl who has trouble seeing herself as deserving of the many fortunate twists that brought her here in the first place.

So maybe that's the first neccessary step. Here's hoping.

Cheers to health.

Today is the first day this week - or dare I say, in over a week - that I have not been in some physical pain. Excuse the apparent melodrama - but it is a fact - I have done a lot of pain-inducing activities, been teetering on the edge of sickness, and had a nasty (but not uncommon) pinched nerve in my neck.

Unfortunately I'm no stranger to long-term bouts of pain (never utterly incapacitating but at times intolerable). But I have been recovered for a few years now, and it is amazing how quickly we forget our greatest trials, and revert to taking life's most basic necessities for granted.

So here's to today's absence of pain, an unbelievably freeing, essential gift. And a reticent 'thank you' to the universe, as well, for the unwelcome yet necessary reminder of lucky I am to be young, well, and alive.

I don't care if the train runs late, if the checks don't clear, if the house blows down..

I'll be off where the weeds run wild,
Where the seeds fall far from this earth-bound town.
And I'll start to soar,
Watch me rain 'til I pour.
Catch a ship that'll sail me astray
Get caught in the wind, I'll just have to obey
Til I'm flying away...
-Craig Carnelia


They say that Saturday’s earthquake in Chile has altered the Earth’s distribution of mass ever so slightly, speeding up its rotation and thus decreasing the length of every day by some minute fraction of a second.

The latter part – the shortening of days bit – is inconsequential in magnitude. Besides, if you are like me and subscribe to the belief that time is purely relative, the claim that days have shortened smacks of scientific propaganda. But the notion that the entire world in which we live has forever changed a singular incident, in a singular country, on a singular continent is unnerving, to say the least.

This whole real-life manifestation of the Butterfly Effect is jarring enough – without inevitable consequence of applying it to our own lives.

If I had taken one step, uttered one sentence, formulated one thought differently- could it really have resulted in an outcome entirely different from the one I am currently living?

My answer is Yes. And the only way to cope with this devastating theory is to employ the ‘ignorance is bliss’ mentality – to plunge ahead with the comfort that we would never know the difference. Maybe life would be exponentially better. Maybe I’d be dead.

My life has been a bit off-kilter in the last week; a head-cold, a myriad of aches and pains, and a lingering sense of uneasiness have forced me to question what has thrown my own world slightly off its axis. Changes are occurring. They may be both good and necessary, but they’re still changes – and attention must be paid. Cruising through them without proper recognition could potentially backfire.

So with that I raise a glass to the express train instead of the local, stairs instead of elevators, March instead of February, a new home, a family who remains 3000 miles away, an ever-changing career path. An ever-changing sense of self.

It’s hard, and weird, and terrifying. Not in theory, not hypothetically, and not by some inconsequential fraction of a percent. In reality.

I don't know, maybe I'm just a fool.
I should keep to the ground, I should stay where I'm at.
Maybe everyone has hunger like this-
and the hunger will pass-
but I cant think like that...