What it really looks like...

...in this heart of mine. 

Not a lot of sparkle here today. It's dark and turbulent. A stormy space.

I'm trying hard to be calm and rational because I know that to rail at things I cannot influence or control just leaves me feeling bruised and no closer to the resolution I seek. I remind myself that things happen for reasons not always apparent at the time and often turn out to be for the better. I can point to many examples of this in my near and distant past to support my belief and optimism. I count my many, many blessings and I berate myself for petty selfishness when there are people out there going through much harder times, facing much tougher things and my little tantrums about idiotic fanatics and cretinous bureaucracies and dreams denied do nothing but make my heart rate soar and leave the world untouched. I try to keep things in perspective. I look for the light on the horizon and I try to move towards that, ignoring the dark clouds overhead and the rough seas around me.

I push to the outside, against the windows of my heart, where they can be seen and attract the same, all the hopeful thoughts and positive energy I can muster. But. Inside, in the tiny soundproof room I keep for moments like this, I'm alternately pacing the floor, ranting and waving my fists; lying curled in a small tight ball, crying like a child, or just staring into the dark... quiet and still and worn down. Frustration, anger, sadness, disappointment, despondency - that's what you'd see written on the walls of this room.

This has not been a great week for me or some of those I love and is about more than just the fact that a passport has not yet appeared, although that's a part of it. It's about:

~ the postponement of a dream - the friends I hoped to meet and the soulfood we hoped to share
~ the deep need I have for that right now - to connect, to create, to renew my energies
~ the prospect of facing new challenges without it - my batteries are running on empty
~ the commitments I cannot keep - and the people I care about that I must disappoint as a result
~ the disillusion of a heart - not just mine - that's loved for longer than it remembers and has been disappointed so badly that it has turned that love to dust
~ the insensitivity of an ego that does not look or cannot see past its own boundaries to the damage it inflicts on others, daily
~ the 9th of March - a day of bitter, hurtful memories and a new sadness of loss
~ the urge I have to draw the curtains - and to take up residence in that tiny room a while longer
~ the urge I have to stop - to just stop.

What it really looks like in this heart of mine... is not a pretty sight today. You might want to avert your eyes. I would not blame you. I want to avert mine. Or perhaps just focus on that strip of light on the horizon.

Next week will be better.

I hope you have a good weekend. I hope we all do.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

(1929-1968)