life's been tossing me around like a ragdoll a bit lately. the past several months have seen some implosions - small to large - that have taken up much of my time and thoughts. (vagueness here is always intentional; the internet is not a confessional).

for the most part, everything has stablized and whether or not some of that stability is less than ideal is out of my control. all the pieces are in their places and the collective shock of multiple events is wearing off to the point where i can take the hands off the back of my head, stand up from my crouch, and look around. and what's the most shocking to me is how ill-equipped i am to deal with the aftermath. what i mean is: how do i prevent my life from dipping too deeply into cliché? in other words, is there a way to give credence to my own sadness and disappointment without slipping into either "woe is me" victimization or the other extreme of imagining hypotheticals with situations far worse than my own?

i think it's because i have no adequate coping skills. hard to wrap a fully-formed argument around it, but essentially it revolves around the fact that i was raised and taught to believe that i can be anything, i can do anything. the only problem, of course, is that i don't know how to get to that "anything" and absolutely no methods to deal with the roadblocks life presents.

hard work is the path to success, no? and yet, i feel i've worked hard all my life and there is very little overlap between the place i find myself and the destination i thought i was working towards. and i've found i've been stunned by so many confusing how'd i get here? moments lately that i have no idea how to adjust what i'm doing and re-focus my efforts, simply because i'm so far from where i thought i'd be.

and so, late at night, when everything is dark inside and out, i breathe out little pleas, whispered repetitions. they are so quiet i cannot hear them, only realize that my lips are moving, only recognize the variations of my exhales. and this ritual has become all i have to try to center myself again. it's nearly enough. almost but not quite.