Monday, June 6, 2005  1:13 pm  <|>
<219> Pending Places: My sense of place has been fairly set for awhile now and yet at the same time, so open completely that it's hard to keep track of. I'm sure that doesn't make any sense, but neither does life now does it? What I mean is, I've tended to know what I mean to certain people, but overall I have no idea. I think I know in general where I'm going in life, but just like anyone else, I can't really know or even really have a general picture because nothing in life is strict or certain. I keep changing my views - though the foundation is always there - I am left to wonder at any given turn what everything means and why things play out the way that they do. I'm a believer in the "everything happens for a reason" stance, but it's hard when some things just seem so unlikely to be correct. The decisions we are faced with that leave us so unsure because deep down we know there isn't really a wrong choice - it's just that different selections will take us down different paths and that is maybe sometimes scarier than the potential for the wrong choice, but living in the world we do today we feel like we should always be able to hit "undo." We know it doesn't always work that way, in fact even slightly falling of course could indeed change our paths forever... but then it comes back to having faith in fate or whatever you want to call it, to help comfort you in the knowledge that everything will work out eventually, the way that it's supposed to. Unfortunately you just need to wait. Giving things time might be one of the easiest things to say and one of the hardest things to do. When anything happens to you, you're first instinct is to try to grab control of it, but that's not always possible. Often you just have to let things fall as they may and then work to pick up the pieces later. It's hard to swallow that fact, but you must. The choices you make, somewhere inside you know they are the right ones somehow, even when it's hard to see. When you must do things against your inner will, you learn to make the best of it with the hope of a higher purpose and future possibilities that will make it all worth it in the end. You aren't alone, not ever, in these feelings, so maybe that sometimes helps too when you can remember that. Despite time, despite distance, despite failure... these are only temporary constraints in the end. All of them can be changed and overcome if that is what is desired. You go through things that are hard because you know it will make things better. You force yourself just a little bit more, because you know what lies ahead is what you've really been looking for all along. The answers and signs are all around us, but it takes certain restraint to make yourself stop to find them. Knowing the destination doesn't always make the path safer on the way, but knowing you have a good chance of getting there sometimes does. We're all in this together, even when we feel alone, but sometimes journeys have to be taken on our own to make them meaningful.

Our paths exist almost like parallel worlds, intertwining at the oddest places, but all with a means to their madness (in theory anyway). We can jump between them at any time, sometimes by our own choosing, sometimes not. We seek to find the best balance to all of them, when really that isn't possible. You simply can't see them all at once and you definitely cannot step back from them even slightly to see clearly what the best combination would even be. That is what we call life and the only way to get through really, is to live it for yourself.