Reality Check

I watched this trailer today.  I am going to be purchasing this film, and I am going to watch it, and then I am most likely going to share it.   From a mere eight minutes of my life spent viewing this, I am inspired, riveted, and charged to look myself in the mirror.

The fact is that I faced my own mortality 5 years ago.  Actually, five years ago today I was in the hospital, where I would visit for spans of weeks over the next year or so of my life, with the threat of death looming.  But it wasn’t so direct.  It wasn’t Cancer (all though there were a couple of different Cancer drugs used to treat it when things were really bad).  There were no black masses growing in my organs.  Sure, my immune system was waging war on my own self tissues, interrupting vital processes, but no one would have called it terminal.  I just had a special case of doctors not knowing what else to do for me, also known as a call  letting me know it was time to wake the hell up.  It was what it needed to be. (It always is).  And I’ve been out of the dire danger zone for about 3 years now.

And here I am, still putting the pieces together.  I’m not “well” yet, but I’m not really “sick” either.  I’m in some kind of purgatory.  But you know what, I’ve been here too long.  I’ve been languishing.  I’ve made decisions that have put unnecessary stress on me because I had the wrong priorities.  I’ve been frantic, and desperate at times.  I’ve been this without being fully conscious of it, but a voice deep down inside of me has never let me rest.  More and more has been revealed in time, and it is clear I have been battling nothing but myself: the part of me that knows it is whole trying to get through to the part of me still waiting for my own love. 

The bottom line is that I’m not dying.  I have no excuse not to be thriving.  I am not trying to persecute myself, but I’ve been a victim too long, thinking that I somehow out-smarted it when I have not.  There comes a time when you just have to kick your own tush a little.  Snap out of it, girl.  The universe already warned you.  You’ve already been shown the way.  You’ve already been shown what you need to be living.  Let’s get it done already.

It might sound like I’m being hard on myself, but no one else is going to do this for me, and the fuel has to come from somewhere.  I’ve already validated the hardship enough, and defended my right to be struggling.  I’ve made a laundry list of needs, and laid my success conditionally upon their being met.  I now have what I need to make it happen, and there isn’t anywhere else to look for more.   The focus has to come from me.  It is no longer a matter of wanting to take my time and go easy on myself, because hanging out in half-way land, where I’m not totally free of the past and not embracing the future, stuck in a moment riddled with everything but right now, is really not good enough for me.  I deserve more.  We all do.

(Breathing…)

Okay.  What am I… doing? 

You know what they say, the last steps are the hardest.  It’s shaped like a pyramid. You can take huge, clumsy steps at the bottom levels of the latter, but the closer you get to the top, the more balance and precision you need.  I have the answers, I just have to apply them, moving with grace. 

So how do I go about being kind to myself, while also putting a fire under my own back side?  The thing is, I hate to say it, but it’s easier to work it out when your life is on the line.  I mean, what else is there to do?  When death is an imminent threat, you give the cure all you got.  For those who aren’t ready to go yet, what other choice do you have?  You pull things from God-knows-where, out of the ethers, to make it happen.  You become a warrior, wielding your Self.  But how do you become a sorceress? A wizard?  How do you master it?

Practice.  Discipline.  Devotion.  Love.  Surrender.

(Exhaling…)

Okay.  Too long surviving.  I know what I have to do to live.  I am powerful.  I can do this.  It is time.  I am ready.