In the nature of Virture

After toying with the idea of writing another blog for the past month at least, because I promised (to myself) that I'd update more frequently and stay upfront and honest (with myself), I went ahead and let it slip for weeks. Studying and exercising have consumed my time during daylight hours, while social events, dancing and insomnia enjoy my attention after dark.

Why can't I sleep? Because I have to make peace with the present each day, and some days it's not so easy to convince myself that I'm okay with it. With loving someone where a permanent barrier has always been and may always exist. With dashing my expectations and redirecting my goals. It's a totally different kind of heartbreak. The answer seems totally obvious, but I am terrified to do it. I convince myself to hold space until there can be no further justification.

I can't sleep because I'm angry. I can't sleep because I'm uncertain. Because I'm inspired. Guilty. Insomnia takes a different form and claims a different warrant every night, but the result is the same. Hours in the dark, wrestling my pillow and kicking aside a cooler niche into my sheets. Reliving years of forgotten moments. Echoing conversations, insecurities, fears.

I'm not fighting with geography anymore. After turning my direction back to Phoenix three weeks ago, when everything I set out to do came to an undeniable stall, I took it as a message loud and clear that God wants me here and this is where I need to grow. The initial twinge of defeat dissolved into peace, acceptance, and disconnected recuperation. I was welcomed into arms of friends. Suddenly, it became clear that the social world I imagined lived opposite the globe from me was enthusiastically distributed around the desert, anticipating my visits. The perceived failure of climbing back into a nest I'd outgrown was misconceived, as it turns out this is a generation phenomenon and not an embarrassing secret.

Learning, thinking, finding balance. Such quiet activities, so internal, so subtle. So vital. I've devoted this time to these things. It's working. I'm being dedicated and focused, and it's working.

I remember that my options are open, that the winds will change, that one must embrace change. I accept that at this present moment, any dramatic movement will tear my heart out like the entrails of a panicked, stinging honeybee, and so I will not make any dramatic movement.

There are lessons everywhere, to be learned from every life, transient and sessile. Staying sensitive to this is a forever task.