Honesty

Driving always felt so therapeutic. When i drive, i am thinking. Sometimes I have music on, but more often than not lately, I drive in silence. I have conversations with myself. I leave the logical side of myself to the driving and take off into my musings. It's gotten to the point that I sometimes forget where I was going until I get there.

I have told so many people to just be honest. With themselves, with other people. I know it's not always the easiest thing to do. Believe me I understand that more intimately than I wish I did. But I know that honesty has saved me from myself. Saved me from decisions and situations that could have been much much worse.

With snow everywhere as I look outside I feel like some divine force is making a poetic statement about life in general. That the snow is there, covering over the life beneath it. But we have plows and shovels and four-wheel drive to get us through it. The snow doesn't just go away, we have to wait. Until it's gone, we use our shovels and our plows and snowblowers to make things a little easier to deal with while we wait.

To be completely non-poetic for a moment. My life, recently, has been hellish. I know i'm not the only one that has a hard time. I know i'm not the only one in the world that has to deal with things like jobs and money. I also know that people deal with each other every day and try to make the best of it. All of those things, lately, have been hard.

I've tried to make the best of it. I've been functional and alert and ever vigilant with myself. I have made mistakes and fallen. I've made mistakes and been helped up. I am lucky to have the people around me that I do. When it comes down to the basis of my life, though, I have to fix or deal with these things on my own. No matter how much company, how many friends, how much love we have, we will always wind up alone, to fend for ourselves against ourselves.

Alone isn't always bad. I cherish my alone time. I am a person that thrives on other people's energies. I always make it my goal to be strong for them. To help them if they need me. When I need help, i am reluctant to ask, and reluctant to receive when it comes my way. I am grateful, though, when it comes. My own dichotomy. I am an extrovert. Sometimes, I just need me.

I always say to be honest even though it's hard. I always preach that honesty may hurt but dishonesty is worse. Then, when the time comes for me to live by my own rules, I struggle. Easier said than done. So now i'm struggling, because I'm being honest. I am being true to the one person I can help, the one person I can save. Myself.

I have regrets. I regret how i've handled some things. I regret some of the things I've said in the past. I regret that I couldn't just be mindless and hopeless and ignore those things in my life that made it hard. I had to face them, and in some cases, I had to be harsh with them. But they are still so much a part of me. Letting go was never even an option. It was only a myth I thought I could live up to.

All things heal in time. Or so they say. I hope that is true. I want to believe that I did the right things in my life. I want to believe that the choices I have made were not rash. That the benefit of those choices will, someday, become evident.

I am not happy. I am not hopeless. I am not perfect. I am not alone. I am not going to fight worthless battles. I am not going to drop it all and walk away. I am not going to shun my responsibility to myself.

I am going to be honest. I am going to shut off the music, and drive in the silence of my life. I am going to shovel the walk way, put the Jeep in four-wheel drive and pray for the summer.