Tomorrow morning...I will sit in a room with other twenty something year olds...and I will attempt to pass a Praxis exam so that I can teach kids...I'm pretty sure that I will hate this exam as much as I hated them as a child...I can already feel the anxiety rising to my eyebrows...and I am positive that there is a goat in the room...I must really want to teach because I am putting myself in situations that I swore off years ago...In some ways tomorrow is a metaphor for my entire past year...
It seems that I keep finding myself presented with unusual situations...challenges...if you will...that measure my ability to move forward in life...and even as I find my successes...I find that I am periodically looking over my shoulder...I can't decide if I'm expecting to see someone racing up behind me...or if I expect to see me racing wildly behind...well...me...But...I have to be truthful...I am starting to...not be afraid...not feel panic...and to stand still...I'm not sure when it happened...I'm not sure when the devastation stopped...It's as if one morning I woke up with my number two pencil...in my hand...and it was actually sharpened...and I wasn't stabbing myself...
Oh...I've had moments...moments when I felt a tiny shiver run down my spine...and then it's gone...no longer do I struggle for days with issues...like the drawn out sound of nails dragging across a chalkboard...I don't even feel the need to haul my old skeletons out of the closet...of course...that could be because I've sold them all...and dragged the random bones to the curb...I just don't feel like I am holding anything in...or down...or back...I actually feel good about myself...I think...for the first time in my life...I'm starting to sleep at night...I feel as if I am ready for everything...and in those times that I'm not...well...I'm just not...it happens...sometimes you are caught off guard...and that's okay...I mean...it really is okay...I still care...it just doesn't rip my heart out...
There are still people who don't like me...there are still people who do...Isn't that the way it is for everyone?...The fact is that for the first time in my life...I don't feel like everything and everyone...is revolving around my choices...What an unbelievably miserable feeling it has been...forever...that I would do some tiny thing and ruin the world...
Don't get me wrong...I still believe in the butterfly effect...I believe we have a responsibility to respect life and others...that we have certain duties to be the very best we can be...not to sound like an Army commercial...but there is that responsibility to ourselves...But...in those moments...when we feel small...feel frail...it's alright...that is the best that we can be...at that moment...and someone else's best will comfort us...and tell us that everything will be alright...
I told a woman today...that she needed to turn herself over to the police...and I watched her cry...not in a pleading way...but in an I'm so tired way...and there was a beauty in that moment...as if she was crying truthful tears for the first time...She asked me why this was happening...Why couldn't she get out of this situation...and I could see in her tear filled eyes that she was giving in...to the moment...and I held her hand...and said firmly and evenly...
This is a test...this is only a test...
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