Thoughts on me

So here I am, June of 2009, the month I turn a year older, wondering why I’ve written very little over the past several weeks. In truth, I think it’s been a necessary and healthy pause because it’s given me some time to assess where I am, and where I’ve been.

How To Matter started in December, 2008…almost exactly 6 months ago. This was a rather tumultuous time for me, on many fronts, and I needed a place to sort things out. The initial benefits were clear…it felt good to be talking, getting things out, inspecting them from different angles.

More than this, it seemed to set a couple of things in motion that have proven quite important to me. First, HTM has been the doorway into the lives of a handful of people who’ve played an important role in my transition these last months. Those friendships have served me well, they’ve helped me to gain needed perspective on certain things in my life, and they’ve given me the necessary inspiration to persevere. More than all of that, though, they’ve given me the opportunity to feel the power of gratitude for others.

The second important element to arise from my time here at HTM has been creative inspiration. Writing has always been elemental to important change for me, but the things that have come along with it this time around have been new. Most noticeably, I’ve developed an interest in photography. Actually, I’m not sure that’s altogether accurate. Because it’s not primarily the act of taking pictures that I enjoy…finding that perfect shot to capture. It’s that I’ve become much more observant (in large part thanks to Detlef, observer extraordinaire), begun to take notice of all the little things happening (or simply being) around me. And it’s in these very details I’m observing that I’m finding inspiration. When I come across that certain image, it’s as though I’m seeing much more than what lies on the surface. I’m hearing its story, and I’m often compelled to tell it.

This second development, this creative inspiration, brought with it a challenge, though. I’ve spent the better part of my life thinking about myself as a left-brain kind of person. Very logical. Quite rational. But creative? Not a chance. Had this inspiration come at a different time in my life, a time, perhaps, where lots of other things were, by most appearances, going well, it’s quite likely I would have dismissed it. Identity is a powerful force, and when it’s working against you, the walls around you seem to grow taller.

But as luck would have it, my creative inspiration came when I needed it most. When everything (professionally speaking) I’d been working toward, and once believed were worthy of the effort, were crumbling all around me. And rather than shut down and assume all was lost, I chose to expand my beliefs about what was possible. So though I’ve never even considered myself particularly creative, today I’m willing to believe it.

One critical distinction I’ve made, particularly while considering my relative silence recently, is that each challenge faced changes our path, if only slightly. And if we don’t change with it, if we continue in the direction we were headed, I think we get lost. Though it wasn’t necessarily (consciously) intentional, this blog started out as the couch upon which I needed desperately to lie. I’d held back too much for too long…and I needed to release. So I did.

And through this process, I’ve had the opportunity to think in a very focused way about many of the little pieces that make up a life, my life. Ever so slowly, things began to change. My path, as it were, took a turn, but it seems I kept walking straight.

Such is the downfall of momentum. All this time I’d spent talking about things that weighed heavily upon me, it seemed to become a bit of a habit. So when that load began to lighten, I hardly noticed. Instead, I kept looking for things to talk about that fit that M.O., and I was stuck.

I realize now that I’ve simply been trying to create the wrong things. Those wrong things had a place, once, but I think it’s time to move along. I’m not saying it’s all shits and giggles going forward, but it’s important to recognize that my life isn’t all those things I’ve been talking about. Yes, they’re on the ingredient list of that recipe, sure, but so are a lot of other things. Fine things. And when you put them altogether, it taste’s pretty damn good. I’m like bologna in that way.

So what now? Probably nothing momentous. I don’t foresee any manifestos or ‘launches’ in the immediate future, but one thing I have decided is that I’m going to broaden the scope of this blog a bit. No more self-imposed limitations as to what I can talk about. So many of the blogs I love to read provide a wonderful example in this regard, it’s a wonder I took so long to catch on. My goal, then, is to offer, here, a more thorough reflection of my life.

As many of you surely know, and as I’ve discovered for myself over the past 6 months, offering our thoughts up in the form of the written word is extraordinarily powerful. If writing down, and sharing, the things that trouble me can engender awareness, I imagine doing the same with the lighter side of life will prove positive as well.

Above all, though, my takeaway from the past 6 months is quite simple. It’s easy to get stuck. It’s easy to find yourself in a rut and concede that this is all life has to offer. It’s easy to marvel at the road ahead, seeing only the lines and the few feet in front of you and imagine them to be accurate representations of your limits.

But the easiest thing of all is to take one small step, and then stop and look ahead and try to plan your next thousand moves. Why is that easy? Because it lets you justify staying put. It provides ample evidence that the road is simply too perilous. Too difficult. Too scary.

What the last 6 months have given me, and what I cannot begin to thank you all enough for being a part of, is the recognition that it’s all an illusion. That regardless the situation, regardless how formidable the challenge, how long and difficult the road, doing is the answer. Thinking, reading, praying, fearing, they all have a place. But you’re not going to think your way down the path. The most detailed instructions in the world have no power in and of themselves. Even God Herself won’t deliver you without effort.

Motion is the only way.