4.4.2011

I set out this month to complete the Poem a Day challenge but I got stuck on the very first prompt. "How did you get here" I've repeated those words to myself over and over again since Friday. How *did* I get here? There are obvious answers in biology and genetics as well as in the material I read and the people I've surrounded myself with and been surrounded by. I still don't have a complete answer although the poem I wrote, Origins, attempts to answer some of what is implied in that question. (See my post from 7/30/10 for it) I got where I was until the time of my divorce by playing it safe and calling it something else. I stayed there out of fear--a deep seated fear of being who I was inside, the person I was taught was bad and defective, coupled with sheer terror at failing at marriage and being alone forever. It still amuses me on a certain level when people respond to me saying how long I was married with some kind of statement about it being an accomplishment. I suppose that might seem dismissive. After all, it does take strength to endure and hold on. It has to be weighed, though, against the motivation behind it, I think. To hold on out of fear of change to *anything*, is a negative behavior, in my opinion. Growth occurs through change, through taking risk. I am still not where I want to be in that regard but I'm moving toward it by inches (or so it feels some days).

I remember the little girl I was and I keep trying to eradicate some of the disdain I feel toward her. She was silly and light-hearted and wanted nothing more than to create, and to get to be in a world where people were happy. At a certain point, the effort to hang on to that began to seem foolish and, well, childish in a world that demanded an acceptance of responsibility. Thus develops an adult who finds it hard to stay put, to not seek constant escape in one form or another.

Over the weekend, it occurred to me that my greatest challenge now may be to return to the creativity that was so strangled from within and without for years and to stay put rather than seeking escape. Stay, stay, stay, I kept feeling a tiny voice say to me. I'm setting aside the books that I escaped into over and over again and pushing myself to focus on ones that ask me, instead, who this person holding the book really is. I'm signing another lease soon and listening to that voice. Since the last time I wrote, also, I'm feeling more level in general. Thanks, all, who kept that positive energy sent this way. More of it will continue to be appreciated.

<3