survival.

I’ve been trying something lately, with my writing.

I’ve been letting it sit. So often, I write with abandon. In the moment. A lot of times, it’s good. Sometimes, I think, “Dude, you need to chill out!”

And for this week, I’ve written at least five different posts. Either I’ll save them for a rainy day (which is coming much more often here) or I’ll trash them or stick them in my angst file. I realize, that sometimes the things that make sense in my head do so given a certain context. They don’t often translate that well when I read them, say, twelve hours later.

Lately, I’ve been clinging to single words.

Virtues, and such.

Words like: goodness, strong, fierce, Love, forgiveness.

And something I’ve been holding on to much closer:

survival.

I know that seems kind of dramatic. What am I trying to survive from?

Well, everything.
My life has been turned on its head.

When this happens, you grab aimlessly at things that make you feel better. Food. Alcohol. Mindless self indulgence.
And they work. Really well. For a little while.

What I’m coming to learn is that alcohol makes me sort of sad. And keeping my mind busy, is helpful when it’s about constructive things. And food? Well, I’m working it out. To say this is the season of the cheeseburger, might be an understatement. Fair enough.

Usually what I need, is to dull the edge. I wrack my brain, trying to not think about sh*t that has hit, is hitting, and will hit the fan. (Oh verbs, how I love you. I think if I were a verb, I’d like to be a helping verb.)

And on the horizon of all this, is an image. Something I recently saw. A poster by a local artist in which the word, “Survive” is embedded deep in a storm. On the horizon, you see the sun breaking through. For me, right now, imagery is huge. I’m rebuilding my writing desk with such things.

You do what you gotta do to make it through those storms.

But stand back, and look at yourself, if you can. Think about all those other times you weathered more than you thought you could handle.

When I say survival, sometimes I conjure up images of those Discovery Channel dudes, or Tom Hanks in “Cast Away”. In which case, neither of those people are actually needing to survive all that efficiently, considering there are cameras.

Then, there’s the real stuff. Folks with addiction, depression, loneliness, poverty.

The stuff you really have to dig deep to get out of. The things that take a village to change. Thinking you can change any of this by yourself is asking for too much.

To survive, you need others.

You need love, and forgiveness.

You need to fight.

You can never give up.

So to those out there, who feel like they are surviving, whether it’s relational, physical or financial, hold fast!

You are so much stronger than you think.

When your world collapses on you, remember this,

you are strong,

you are good,

you are fierce,

and you will, without a doubt,

survive.

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