Juxtaposition

 I’ve found myself juxtaposing many things during the past few days. I lay things—things about myself, things that are influencing me-- together, side by side. I am straightening them out, viewing them from multiple angles, walking around and around them, trying to understand the complexities in my own life at this very moment. I am doing even more than my traditional over-analyzing. I am trying to experience and experience again, trying to find the symbolism, the meaning, the message.

I am drawn to writing; I yearn for it right now, and yet I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to blog. I have plenty of things to blog about. I have some time available to me to blog. Yet, I am putting words to paper less and less frequently. I want to read something new, and at the same time, I want to read something old.

I am, all at once, interested in teaching myself about Google+ and Pinterest and Storify, and yet, I find myself also drawn to hanging sheets out on the line, picking tomatoes off the plants on the patio, sweeping, making beds with hospital corners, and planning suppers of spinach salad and mushroom risotto. I think about planning new looks for my blog and branding, and then I think about walking quietly along the trail near my house and taking photos of the flowers that have managed to hang on during the heat. 

I am restless, looking for the new thing to see, to learn, to do, to be. I am weary, working hard this summer to accomplish important tasks and entertaining my boys and making myself physically stronger. I plan and scheme of new adventures, and procrastinate on other tasks. I feel bored and overwhelmed—all at once.

I think I am growing, for lack of a better term.

I used to call it being at a crossroads, but I won’t continue to use that terminology. Crossroads implies a choice that must be made; a path that one will leave behind them and never come across again. IT’s too linear for what I am doing. I’m not making a choice—not on any large scale—at this moment. I am growing, in jumps and starts; uneven. This part bounds out from me and, and that part sinks in a bit. Then the other side balloons out, and this side is pulled taut.

There was a period of my life where this would have bothered me greatly—in fact, it probably would have sent me teetering over the edge. In the past, I was not one to handle incongruity well. Today, well, it irritates me, just a little bit. I can handle it; I can ride the waves as they ebb and flow, and know that there is something else which is occurring—perhaps I do not know where exactly I am being pulled, or perhaps I do know where I am headed-- deep, deep, down. No matter. I am along for the ride, and I explore what I feel needs to be explored in the moment. I live in the present, and try not to fret about the future or the past.

It’s awkward, and yet comfortable.