Aha

I’m late in writing this morning because I’ve been thinking, the kind of thinking with which writing would interfere. Most of the time, writing propels my thoughts, but some thoughts require me to abandon writing for a while so I can consider what’s going on in my head. So it was this morning. I needed to separate thinking from writing and vice versa, giving myself the luxury of contemplation without the obligation of recording my thoughts. That can come later, if at all, I told myself.  Here I am, an hour or more after I made the conscious decision to stand and watch the morning unfold instead of sit and watch words spill from my fingers onto the screen. Something happened during that hour to the way I perceive the world and my place in it. I cannot fully grasp the scope of how enormous are the changes in my perceptions of my world, but I know they are profound.  I have reached the point, in the span of just an hour or so, that I can forgive myself for every mistake I’ve made, if only I commit to leaving those flaws and faults behind me and invest myself in never making those mistakes again. I intend to record the particulars of those mistakes and flaws and faults, but not here and not now. The only thing I need to record here now is my recognition that I can leave them behind if I take the path that leads me away from them. My recognition of this simple reality is at once incredibly freeing—as if a crushing weight has been lifted from my shoulders—and painful, for if I fail to take the opportunity to become a better me, the choice to shun the opportunity will haunt me as yet another failure. None of this is earth-shaking, but then nothing we do belongs in that category. We’re all just fragile earthen vessels bungling through life with the freedom to bump into sharp-edged rocks.