Month: March 2022

Checkpoints

We all make our choices, and I thought I’d have more to show for mine by now. But that doesn’t mean they were the wrong choices, or that I’d necessarily want the things I thought I’d have to show. Or the things I see other people showing.

I am on the road as we all are, but I don’t need to hit the checkpoints that other people have set. I’ve set my own. And they may take longer to reach, and it may be a more tiring journey, but that’s okay, because that’s the path I’ve chosen. And for that path I am right on track. It may just be that my journey requires more faith, because the checkpoints are further away, or there aren’t so many people up ahead of me to validate the route I’m taking.

We have the right to choose our own checkpoints. And perhaps the responsibility, depending on how you look at it. The world doesn’t make it easy, but it’s important to remember that that doesn’t make it wrong. Our internal compass is a far more accurate method of navigation than following the landmarks that others have decreed.

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Wordgame: Red

I am very partial to a red lipstick.

If I was the type of person to put myself together every day, I’d probably like to be a regular red lipstick sort of person. As it is, though, I only wear red lipstick about twice a year. And, even then, when it’s either Christmas or fancy dress, it feels like…a bit much.

I don’t know at what point I started training myself out of making statements. Started looking for all the reasons it wasn’t worth the potential downside. Started talking myself out of effort. I’ve been around a lot of people who scorned effort over the years – scorned my effort, sure, but also just the idea of engaging fully with life. I’ve never liked them for it, truth be told, but I’ve let their disdain for effort colour my behaviour nonetheless. Or, more accurately, uncolour.

I am not going to start wearing red lipstick regularly any time soon. I would like to say that I am, as an exercise. But I’m not. I won’t. I’d be lying. As I type this, I’m still trying to convince myself that I could. I’m imagining being the person who would do that. Reminding myself that, Once Upon A Time, I was exactly that person. Wondering if I can reconnect with that self. Wondering if I want to, when it really comes down to it.

Maybe it won’t be red, but perhaps a question to ask myself is what statement am I willing to make today? What statement am I ready to make? What statement must I make, regardless of readiness or willingness?

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Turbulence

There have been a lot of shiny objects, pressing deadlines, conflicting priorities and disruptive forces these past couple of weeks.

Life is bigger than it has been for years, so it all seems right on track as an external manifestation of the inevitable resistance.

Certainly enough to rattle me. Enough for me to foresee the overheating of the systems. But the plane isn’t going down.

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