Get Up

Driving home tonight after going to see a movie with a friend, I started composing the blog post I was planning to write when I got home. I had a general theme I wanted to convey, and I had constructed a fitting metaphor that I could even twist midway through the piece where it would make a nice turn of phrase and a reversal in perspective, creating potentially profound, or at least somewhat interesting writing.

But what I wanted to write about was fears and wants. And it all sounded too familiar. It sounded like the me I used to be. The me who reveled in self-pity and self-indulgent negativity. The me who saw I was stuck in a pit but just kept digging deeper and deeper instead of trying to find a way out.

So I decided not to write that post. What I’m writing instead is not especially optimistic nor will it offer any solutions. But it is real. It’s me asserting control over my thoughts and choosing to move on instead of ruminating on the past and wondering if so many of the bad things that have happened in my life were all my fault.

I believe in owning your mistakes. But the past I’m talking about doesn’t matter anymore. Because I’m not that person anymore. And that guy was never even the villain I make him out to be sometimes. He was just lost. But I’m not. So now when I get knocked down, I don’t look at the scrape on my knee and worry if it’s going to bleed or hurt too much. I don’t focus on how I must be such a screw up for falling down and I don’t decide I should probably just stay where I fell. No. Now, I get the fuck up, set my eyes back on the horizon, and start walking.