Filtered Light

In my living room the Florida sunshine filters through my blinds. Although my blinds are closed, the cracks allow enough light so that I can see distorted pieces of the day. I can hear the wind rustle through palm trees. I’ve never liked palm trees much.  Or at least not in recent times.  I think they are sharp and jagged.  I’ve noticed since moving here, though, that not all palm trees are created the same of course. Some look like misshapen cotton balls on top of a spindly stick. Some like an explosion of fireworks.

I wonder sometimes if I’m living my life with the blinds half closed. Trying to shut out the light. Comfortable in my habits and my restlessness and vague sense of melancholy.  Trying to shut out the light that I know is out there but that I’ve determined I might be afraid of.

I’ve felt happiness and hope and connection. And I’ve felt darkness, sadness and isolation. And I’ve felt a sense of disgruntled numb. In the past year I’ve made a number of drastic changes and moves, feeling that the numb is no longer good enough, that feeling should return. But feeling is very difficult. Scary even.

I’ve struggled with some athletic injuries and can no longer run. For the longest time running was my salvation. With each foot fall, the rhythm of the pavement of the beat of music in my ear, I would pound through my anxieties, with each breath I’d feel empowered. I liked what it did for my mind and my body and I managed my weight and my life through running.  Simple, solitary, yet connecting me to something bigger.  Someone broke my heart at the same time I lost the running. And as an oversensitive adult who was an oversensitive child in a broken home, the broken heart weight heavy on me.  I’ve never been good at coping with loss. With faith in connection.

It has led me to this place of filtered light. Of trying to reinvent myself now that the structures have been destroyed. I am facing the destruction of one final structure. My job. I haven’t been happy with my career choice for quite some time but it’s been a solid income and I’ve been okay at it. But in this final position, the final move I’ve made, the one I intended to be final in this field at any rate, I’m second rate. I’m not the go-to person I am used to be and what’s more I stand to lose the job.

Where my road takes me next I’m not sure.

The reinvention of this blog will be about the reinvention of me. It will be my story. If you are along for the ride, thanks for joining me.  If you read the old one, I hope this one will be more organized, but as I just get started, like all beginning, I suspect there will be some epic fails and disorganization. But in the end, perhaps I can make it something worth people’s time – including mine.