The Autumnal Equinox

Today is September 22, 2013, the date of the fall equinox.  It is significant for a lot of reasons and to a lot of people.

I found a comment on one of my older posts that reminded me that "The Circle Game" was written by Joni Mitchell.  I had referenced a performance of the song by a singer named Buffy St. Marie.  She sang it in the opening and closing minutes of the 1970 film, "The Strawberry Statement."  But to the "commenter" I offer a "thank you" anyway.

As I look back over the four years I have been blogging, I see how I have changed.......how the world has changed.  I marvel that after all that has happened, we....the world and I......are still intact and rolling around the heavens.  It is a tribute to either an intensely organized master-plan or a completely random, totally chaotic universe.  I tell myself that I have lost my faith (Catholic at the onset), but I no longer believe that to be true.  It is more as though I have modified it.  I still expect it to get dark this evening, that the waning harvest moon will still be visible (if the cloud-cover isn't too heavy), that the sun will come back tomorrow morning.  Except for some consequential event barring it, I expect to wake up in the morning.  I am, perhaps, less sure of markets, contracts and commitments.  The mechanisms that keep the earth rotating are substantially more reliable than the beings who occupy it.
Still, even they.....the greatest variable elements of all, have some degree of predictability, and therefore can be taken on some level of faith.  All this is from a woman who is not entirely sure what makes her happy.  I wish I could have that wisdom and confidence that comes from truly "knowing it all" and being able to predict the future behavior of everything and everybody.  I wish I understood myself better.  I wish I truly believed in something, but I don't really.  In times of crisis I find myself reverting to the old ways..........praying to an invisible God and asking him for favors and miracles.  Not that I have ever gotten any, but because I have no idea what else to do.

Between the Dark and the Daylight....

I am generally a pretty happy camper.  Even the vicissitudes of life don't beat me down too badly nor for too long.  Lately, however, I have been visited by a darkness of increasing intensity.  I see it coming on and recognize it for what it seems to be.....plain old, garden-variety depression.  No matter what the healthcare and pharmaceutical communities tell you, there is NO drug that fixes it.  I suffer from "situational" depression.  The issues stem from my seeming inability to change the circumstances that cause the pain or sadness.  Acceptance of not having control over something or the ability to even impact it has never been my strong suit.  It is a character flaw.  What can I say?  I am a work in progress.

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING, BUT CHANGE IS GONNA COME......

Once upon a time I blogged routinely, consistently, daily, and with a vengeance.  Now I can't remember the last time I made a blog entry on any of my five....no six...blogs.  So much has happened and that is easy to say.  No so easy to demonstrate.

Finally, I actually lost my home and am living in an apartment, paid off my car, am saving money, getting dental work done, trying to lose weight....again, am working diligently on the relationship between Robert and me (which is the most important work I will ever do.), and am trying to find a job and relocate to Saint Petersburg to be close to my family and my love.  God, there is more, but I cannot wrapped my head around it.

There is a sense that I am changing in some fundamental way, but I cannot clearly identify how.  I do know that once upon a time all of the things that have happened would have frozen me with fear so great that I would have become immobile........or died trying to escape.  As recently as a year ago, the changes that I propose to make in my life would have been far beyond my capability.

How have I managed to become so "fearless"?  I don't honestly know.  Maybe it is because "winter is coming".

Too busy living it to write about it..........

That said, it is time to do that.....write, I mean.   I should have been doing it all long, but everyday was so stressful...so painful.......so utterly exhausting.  I failed to follow my own rules for dealing with morass and madness.  Instead of going with the flow, I allowed myself to be sucked into the rip-current.  I fought long and hard against it in an effort to become free of it.  Everybody and his brother knows you have to float with the current to its end.  When you reach the end, you can put your feet down and walk to shore.  You are going to get battered and bruised.  There is no help for that.  It is just what happens.  At least you are alive and  if you are alive, the possibilities are endless.