Everything I Am Not

Like frail foliage fading on a magnificent mountainside, indulgently parched, am I.

I am a resoundingly blue sky daubed with hopeful clouds - swollen, distended drifters.  I am dry, yet soft. Jagged and withered, strong and tall. Simultaneously wilt and bloom, do I.

I am warm, playful gusty wind, mischievously embraced by the sun.   I am cool, still water – reflectively crisp.  I ebb, flow, gush, ripple and halt.  A whimpering howl, am I.

I am dropped, scattered, seeds making my fateful journey bound for a fresh beginning.  I am the stubborn few clutching to the barren stem.  I am wholly shattered. Harmoniously bold and muted. Enthusiastically jaded, am I.

I am vividly bright, dazzlingly opalescent.  A misconstrued blotch of brown, green, white and blue.  Duplicitous dark shadows shade and distort - neither holding me up nor dragging me down.  Pleasantly pliable, am I.

I am feebly exquisite and honorably scarred. 

Painfully proud, am I.

First Things Gray

You, first.

I've heard this many times over the last few months:

"The most important thing right now is to take care of yourself first."
"In order to take care of others, you first need to take care of yourself."
"What have you been doing recently to take care of YOU?"

I get it.  Put your oxygen mask on before the person next to you.  Makes sense.  It's black and white. On an airplane, it is.  Your mask first so you can help others. Check.  Black and white is easy.  It's either this, or that.  Yes or no.  Left or right. Stop or go.

An entire spectrum of gray, however -  has been paralyzing. Lately I've been trudging through life with a mucked up mind, and as a result, I've simply felt stuck in my tracks.  Cemented, but certainly not grounded.  The matters of my mind have splattered together into a big heap of cracked, dusty clay.

I've been under the assumption that my recent gray matters (no, not the good gray matter!) have been a result of life's stressors. Things are tough and heavy right now.  Sure.  I mean, I'm seeing cloudy floating spots at this very moment as I type from anxiety.  But I've been stressed and stuck many times before and I've managed to carve a rough path through the gunk and forge ahead, nonetheless.

I think I finally realized that what really has been fuzzy for me (not warm and fuzzy...more like bleary fuzzy) hasn't been my list of new and specific daily challenges. Don't get me wrong, they've added to the dusty film. However, the majority of what has cemented me in place, ironically, is not very concrete.

Why can't I dig deep and find my momentum to rise above the grime these days?  My guess is that  I just don't know who I am, who I'm supposed to be, or exactly what I'm supposed to do during this particular stage in my life.

How exactly can you put yourself first, when you've completely lost sight of  the colorful person you used to be?  Seems like all of life's "gray," well, it matters more than I realize sometimes.