The Gift of Perspective

 I've been missing Forces of Chaos and have been seriously considering a re-boot. So, here we are.  I've missed this blog. And I've missed you dear readers.

 Lately, I have an increased sense of urgency about creating a collective body of work. I have thousands of poems, dozens of short stories, novels, and countless journal entries and essays going back for 40 years.  Nobody's work is fabulous all of the time.  Some of the stuff I re-read and ask "really?" But I also know there are some gems in there.  It's a numbers game.  If you just keep writing (or making whatever kind of art it is you chose to make), eventually, some good stuff is going to show up.  I look at all of this writing and I feel compelled to leave some sort of legacy.  Perhaps it's my age or the fact that I'm starting over in many areas of my life right now.  At any rate, I looked back at Forces of Chaos and realized it's been ten years since I started this blog.  I've begun to collect that decade's work into a book.  But the point of this post is not my writing career.

As I look back on these blog posts, parts of my life are unrecognizable to me.  I used to consider myself a patient person and I guess I am under certain circumstances.  I have a lot of patience with other people but very little with myself.  I always want to be making more progress and moving forward more quickly than I am.  I'm not really competitive except with myself.  That girl, best move out of my way, to make room for better versions of her.  I am sometimes happy but seldom ever content.  And, no, I don't necessarily think this is a good thing.  Yoga teacher and future mental health professional me, would urge others to practice some self-acceptance and compassion.  But antsy, angsty me wants to accomplish all of the things.  Yesterday if possible.  So that she can go off and do more things today.  I know. I know. I'm working on it. 

But re-reading these old posts makes me appreciate the long game a little more.  I am finally learning that's the one I need to be playing.  If I barely recognize my life in these posts from years ago, then I must be making better progress than I think.  Sometimes it's easy to drown in the mundane details of everyday life.  What am I making for dinner?  Do we need to buy toilet paper?  It's hard to see long term progress this way.  We need to zoom out like those movie sequences where they get farther and farther away and eventually they're viewing the world from space or something.  

When I began my blog in 2013, I could not have imagined moving twice in five years, going to graduate school ( and kicking ass academically), having a husband in the nursing home with a form of early onset dementia or the absolute love and support I have in my life, some from places I did not see coming.  Progress is seldom linear.  Sometimes you need to pull back a little in order to see that your meanderings really are moving you toward where you're supposed to be.