Shining Thru

Looking through the glass at the other side of the window

Looking to see who is out there

Looking to see who is close by

Always watching, Always protecting, Always there

Seeing the people that matter

Seeing the things truly involved in life

Happiness coming to a head

Life leading down the paths we don’t choose

But ending with a smile and love

Sight of true life and a happiness that we thought escaped.

Feeling for them and seeing what they see

Seeing what you know to be true

Hiding behind the masks of the past no more

Embracing the person inside

Accepting the Love being offered.

There seems to be a thin line when trying to balance life out and experience it to the fullest…if you’re not involved in enough activities, groups, people, etc, then you feel like you never do anything but stay home….on the flip side when you start working multiple jobs, get involved with different clubs and groups, and start hanging out with different people it is easy to become overwhelmed to the point of not feeling like you ever have time for yourself….the problem being that by the time you get overwhelmed you are generally already committed, or have justified everything in your head to the point that you don’t want to back out of anything or give up anything…so then what do you do?  Continue to take away hours of sleep, just to get in some time to quiet your mind?  But if you use that as your answer, you start to suffer during the day….your patience grows thin, you get sick of things that are happening around you every day, you start not to enjoy being around the same people because you just want to be alone sometimes…What’s really sad is when you spend all of your time with people, and most of them are not the few that you really want to see….So now, you have a packed schedule, you’re seeing people that you don’t have patience for, and missing the people that you love.

I think that balancing out your life takes real talent…sometimes it’s a lot harder than you think, especially because every time you think you are walking along the tightrope without any problems, a strong breeze comes through and something throws you back off balance.  Sometimes you feel like you are trudging along, but as much as you try to move forward, sometimes you just sink deeper into the mud.

Other times things seem to go really well.  You do all of the things that you want to do, and see all of the people that you want to see….however, it’s easy to get distracted from the things that you need to do at that point.  I wish I could find that perfect balance between the two.

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. ”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have to say that some people would disagree with Emerson.  Some people get really annoyed and even angry when you try to go beyond the normal happenings of the day, when you try to throw something new into the routine.  Some people prefer to know exactly what will happen every day no matter what…while others never want the same routine.  I think that most people have parts of their life in a set routine, either what they do at work, or how they get up int he morning, or what they do when they get home….some of these routines are hard to break, while others you can bounce all around and still get things done.

However, there are some people who live for adventure.  Some people choose jobs like police officers, hiking guides, different jobs that don’t have set routines and they are able to see and do different things with different people each day.

I have to wonder how many people are the adventurous type and how many are the type that like routines to the point where they have an off day all day whenever something does not fall the way it has int he days before it.  I’m willing to bet there are more people that lie somewhere in between, I know there are extremes, but I think most people would agree that trying some new things is a good thing and some routine is also nice at times.

Persistence in all things could be a good thing or could be a bad thing, I guess it depends on a person’s motivation and character.  If a person is persistent and has all good intentions their persistence could still come back to bite them in the behind, where as another person who is only persistent in running up the social ladder or getting the upper hand on a situation or even another person can sometimes be very successful.

I think that things like these are their to remind us that life isn’t fair.  Someone who is only trying to do good for another group or person can sometimes never succeed, or not without running through a huge obstacle course that seems to be directly put in their way with the purpose of making life hard for them….And yet someone else can have the most selfish motivations of all and come out on top.

Sometimes you really have to wonder if being persistent is even worth it…you keep climbing and climbing and yet the top of the mountain still seems out of reach.  All you want to do is to see the view from the top and be able to recognize that the feeling of being on top is worth the hike up and the skinned knees from the trips and falls.

It’s impossible to know what will be worth it until you see the outcome.  In the mean time I guess you just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope that you come out on the top, and not squished beneath another’s boot.

Strength crumbling before your eyes

Watching it dissipate and run through your fingers

Trying to pull it up, not finding it within

Summons are failing no matter how hard you try

Can’t keep going, not strong enough to walk through

Not strong enough to stop the flood gate holding back the emotions

Trying to hang on, but feel the fingers slipping

The grasp failing and fingers scrambling for the edge

Not wanting to drown in the reality you’ve been avoiding

The breath comes only into choking sobs

Tears that refuse to obey your orders of resistance

All the lack of strength, life wearing you down

Wobbly legs that crisscross across the water

Slippery water turned to sleek and slick ice.

Shaking arms out for supported footing

Placing one foot in front of the other

Feeling as if you’re on a tightrope

You walk through life

Tip Toeing around

Scissoring legs try to straighten themselves

Resisting the urge to give up and crawl

Continuing to hold your head up

Confidence does a lot for balance

Balanced for a moment

Looking on watching to see if they will make it

Wanting to come to their side

and hold their hand

Unwilling

Unable

Looking on, knowing that it’s your turn to stumble next

You hope for balance in your life

An unwavering hand to guide you

Give you what you lack

Give you want you want

Not just looking

Walking

How can you keep pushing forward when you don’t have a known direction?  If you don’t know what road you’re traveling down, it’s kind of hard to see over the hills in front of you.  Left or right?  North or South?  The various paths in life that pop up, almost like a secret shortcut…until you get inside the forest and get lost.

Directions in life are tricky….

Never knowing what is coming next, knowing that what you really want isn’t your call if you get it or not…knowing that your hands are tied and there isn’t anything else you can do but wait and see….but then how do you move forward…push on so to speak?  Do you just travel blindly or do you try to map out a new route?

All of the things that happen in life can pop up as obstacles.  Do you drive around, take another avenue, or simply travel over the hump?

Rushing through life sometimes with no visible end

Just moving from one thing to the next

Not knowing when we’ll stop or what we’re moving towards

Rushing along not know what’s in store, what will happen next?

Only seeing two steps ahead and blindly traveling the rest

Not knowing if it will be an easy downhill journey or a cliff that will bring us crashing down

Tumbling through the darkened night

Continuing to move ahead full force

Not able to stop and look around

Figure it out later, but press on for now

Can’t stop, Can’t slow down, Can only rush ahead.

Doesn’t it always seem like when you give up on surprises that they appear out of nowhere.  Just when you thought that spring was on the way, the whole deep south of the United States gets blanketed in snow…and Vancouver is hauling in snow for the winter Olympics with highs of 62 degrees.  Funny how things work out.

Or the surprise ending of a book that comes at the last possible second when you thought that things had already concluded and the author was just trying to wind everything down and throw in a few more conclusions that you already realized yourself….and then all of the sudden they throw something else out there that you didn’t think was even possible to make happen with only the couple of pages left in the book…but they do it, and it turns out to be logical….brave strategy, people like me end up with mixed feelings about how the book ended, not appreciating the surprise, but knowing that it makes perfectly logical sense for the whole storyline.

Movies do it to…all the time, especially by writers and directors that want to set everyone up for a sequel if things go well with the first one at the box office.

There are all sorts of surprises….how do you feel about them?  I know some people that hate them, I know some people who have mixed feelings about them, and others who love them and I mean love them…the best thing in the world for them is a surprise birthday party or a gift for no reason.

I was reading a list of memorable quotes listed by USA Today and one of the quotes caught my attention…

“Obviously a major malfunction.”

Steve Nesbitt, NASA public affairs officer, Jan. 28, 1986, shortly after the space shuttle Challenger exploded.

I feel like this quote can be applied to how we feel when looking at something that happens in life.  Sometimes you can only look at a situation and say “oh shit”…..I mean, really, what else is there to say?  It’s done, over with, a major malfunction in the plans that you had set forth and were going well until that point.  But now it’s in the past, you might not even be sure what went wrong, it probably doesn’t matter what went wrong, it simply did, and now you have a mess.  Just like the pieces of the space shuttle, floating out into open space.

Sometimes a moment catches you so off guard that it’s like it happens in slow motion, or in a daze, or just replays over and over in your head…and there is still nothing to say other than….it’s obviously a major malfunction.  Nothing more…nothing less….what else is there to say at that point?