Stuck in a Stride

I’ve been feeling pretty stuck lately. Recently I had a conversation with a friend about how sometimes, you have to make choices in life. Sometimes things aren’t an ‘and’, but an ‘or’.

Everybody has to make these kinds of choices on a daily basis, but they are different for each of us. While one person might ponder between two parties, another might be deciding between showering or washing the dishes. And while someone might go back and forth over the cost of a cruise, another person might be debating the value of shoes over that evening’s meal.

These choices are hugely varied, and their magnitude and effect on each of us cannot be compared. But still, for each of them, the principal is the same. You can’t have it all. You have to work within your means- whether they be time, energy, finances, or opportunity - and try to make the best of it.

And even though some of these choices are frivolous and some of them are horrible, it’s still  good to have that choice. To know that you hold a certain power in the outcome.

Lately, however, I haven’t been feeling that sense of power. That sense of control.

Lately, I haven’t been seeing my choices.

I have been feeling stuck, imprisoned by all of the things my body won’t let me do. I cannot  always choose between going out for coffee or doing my laundry, because I can do neither. I often cannot even choose between watching a movie or listening to music, because the images on my screen are too difficult to look at, and the music is too loud.

Of course, that isn’t the case all of the time. I do still have moments where I can and must make choices, both fundamental and frivolous.

But there are ever increasing portions of the day where I simply lie still, because there’s nothing else that I can physically do.

And as I have been so physically stuck, I have felt stuck in life in general.

That seems to only make sense - if I cannot even sit upright for extended periods of time, what exactly am I supposed to be doing?

I have appointments lined up over the next several weeks and am keeping my fingers crossed for something to change, for some sort of guidance, but in the meantime it’s pretty much all that I can do to exist, day by day, keeping myself relatively positive, laughing as much as I can.

Because my health is so unstable, so uncertain, it seems impossible to make plans. To make goals. To make strides.

And that makes sense. That’s logical.

But it’s also a bit simplistic.

It’s true that at this point in time I cannot commit to many things. It’s true that I can’t make any sort of physical goals. It’s true that it’s impossible to plan my days, never mind my months.

But that doesn’t mean that I can’t plan or have goals.

That doesn’t mean that I cannot take strides.

It just means I have to find new paths. I have to think harder.

So now, at 11:00 PM on a Sunday night, I am making that commitment. It’s here in writing, so that ought to hold me accountable.

When I lie on the couch, immobilized, I’m going to dream.

And when I am alert, I’m going to make those dreams a reality.

Starting tomorrow I will be adding some new elements to ‘Salted Brownies’. Things that I have thought of, become excited about, and become too nervous to attempt, no longer have an excuse for remaining in the shadows. For remaining in my mind.

I’m going after my dreams.

I hope you hang around for the ride!