Retrospect: The Muse of Circumstance

Inspiration has struck. My muse is my circumstances. Life brings with it, reverses. During times like these we can let pride get the best of us. We keep our selves secret, owing in part to shame and in part to pride. Shame because allowing people in would, in turn, allow people to see how bad it has become. It would mean peeling away the façade and allowing people to see the mess life had become both figuratively and literally. Even at those times when we feel that we are truly putting ourselves out there we are still only showing people a portion of who we are and what we want them to see. The niggling thought always persists: If they really knew me, would they still like me. If they really knew the idiosyncrasies and secret thoughts that make me who I am, would they understand?

The loss of relationship whether it be a love relationship or a friendship smarts all the more at these times. Yet it seems that often the underpinnings of the tenuous bonds of temporary friendship come undone at times like this. The why of it an ever present reminder of the turn's life can take. Who was at fault? Who was right? Who was wrong? Time shows us what is truly important as all of the questions fade into obscurity and only memory remains. Our perception is our inalienable right. Relationships are transitory. Change is the inevitability of life. It is the uncontrollable control that drives us forward. Whether we accept it or not has little to do with its inexorable workings in our lives. Our fortunes, loves, looks and ideals change whether we ordain it or not.

A Change Will Do You Good

"A change will do you good; I think a change would do you good."

Thank you, Sheryl Crow. I like to think this type of change is the carefully planned change of one completely in control of one's destiny. When I find someone like that I will see how that works out. Most of the time change is thrust upon us by circumstances and we don't get to plan how we will deal with it because, well we're too busy dealing with it. Someone said life comes at you fast and this may be the truest statement I've experienced. Not only does life come at you fast but it comes at you early and often. Expecting the unexpected is fast becoming America's new pastime. That is not to say that the unexpected is always the unwanted or better yet the unneeded. Many times we need to be wrenched from our seat of complacency. Sometimes it's just life's way of telling us. Hey you're gonna be dead a lot longer than you're going to be alive so get everything you can out of the living years. Either way, the unexpected is coming. I'm a practitioner of the law of attraction which tells us that we can plan our lives. Humor me for a minute while I circle back to my topic. My first few statements may seem to fly in the face of this but I've found that the mysterious workings of fate all coincide to give us what we have prayed for. The problem with this is that the course is not always smooth and the packaging not always pretty.

Losing everything and returning to square one often seems like the cruelest of ironies but really sometimes you have to start over. Sometimes you have to pare down to the essentials. There is nothing like losing everything to make you aware of what you really can live without. The list of what we need to live has not changed in millennia. Food, clothing and shelter, that's it. Not pretty clothes, not gourmet food and not a mansion. If you have an understanding partner, the clothing may be optional, unless you work. Employers are not real big on nude asses. Don't misunderstand me. I'm down for whatever material trappings life sends my way, but now I know I can survive whether I have them or not.

Many times losing feels like winning and winning feels like losing. The only way you find out which is which is buckling in and riding the wave and seeing where the beast coughs you up. Sometimes you'll acknowledge your true path and other times you'll chart a new course. Time in the belly of the beast definitely gives one perspective.